"Good humour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could be brought to bear upon him. Fleda would let the thing go. But seizing her opportunity another time she would ask him to try the experiment, on a piece of the ground; so pleasantly and skilfully that Earl could do nothing but shut his mouth and obey, like an animal fairly stroked into good humour. And as Fleda always forgot to remind him that she had been right and he wrong, he forgot it too, and presently took to the new way kindly. In other matters he could be depended on, and the seed-time and harvest prospered well. There was hope of making ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... taking away their provisions by force would have made them our enemies, and would have reduced us to great want and distress. These disorders could not happen now, as the men were all kept on board, and there was no going on shore without leave. By these precautions the Indians were kept in good humour, and our market was well supplied. They sold us two Huties, which are little creatures like rabbits, for a piece of tin, cakes of their bread called Zabi for two or three red or yellow glass beads, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... went, I have had many uncomfortable hours, in which the power to do anything is lost. After you had gone away, I rambled about for some three hours in the Museum at Schoenbrunn; but no good angel met me there, to chide me into good humour, as an angel like you might have done. Forgive, sweetest Bettine, this transition from the fundamental key—but I must have such ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... of are happily ignorant of such enjoyment of money, for they know no other use of it than that of promoting mirth and good humour; for which end they generously bring their gains into a common stock, whereby they whose gains are small have an equal enjoyment with those whose profits are larger, excepting only that a mark of ignominy ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... tiny arrows, and the daughter of six would pluck more berries from the prairie and hill-side, in the space of half a sun, than could be eaten in her father's cabin by its hungry inmates for four sleeps. The Moon of Planting saw the Great Spirit in good humour with his children, the Tetons, because they had kept his commands, as laid down by his priests and prophets: the Moon of Green Corn found him equally pleased and gracious. Thence it was that he had showered prosperity upon all ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... did not dismiss Daphne, whose powers of keeping Ruby amused and the ladies-in-waiting in good humour were too valuable to be dispensed with unless it was absolutely necessary. But she was allowed to see in many ways that she had fallen from favour. One of these was she was no longer invited to take part in the daily drives, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... themselves as comfortable as they could in their new quarters, and suffered patiently the disagreeables of French lodgings. They repaired their boats, often broken by the transit from London, and behaved with good humour in proportion to their good sense. Even the grumblers were satisfied, because they were provided with a new set of grievances; and so things passed off better than was expected by those who knew the real circumstances of the venture. It was the first ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... I was writing this sentence," continues Alfred, "Count Altenberg called—how fortunate!—how obliging of him to come so early, before I went to the courts. He has put me into good humour again with the whole world—even with the Miss Falconers. He came to take leave of me—he is going down to the country—with whom do you think?—With Lord Oldborough, during the recess. Did I not tell you that Lord Oldborough would like ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... propitiate. 'He knew', he said, 'many instances where these spirits were so very froward that the present heads of villages which they haunted, and the members of their little communities, found it almost impossible to keep them in good humour; and their cattle and children were, in consequence, always liable to serious accidents of one kind or another. Sometimes they were bitten by snakes, sometimes became possessed by devils, and, at others, were thrown down and beaten most unmercifully. Any ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... said of him that his most colloquial conversation could be taken down in shorthand and read off as an admirable specimen of pure, well-chosen English. He loved to do things upon a grand scale, to preside, to dominate. In his good humour there was something Jovian. When angry, everybody around him trembled. But he had not the genius for detail, was not patient. The certain grandiose lavishness of his disposition occupied itself more ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... it is at any rate the modesty which, if it shrinks into retirement from the pretensions of the crowd, goes along with a high and pitying sense of superiority, and a self-complacency of which the good humour never fails. His masters also taught him to value purity. For this he almost makes a sort of deprecating apology. He saw, indeed, "the vanity of this virtue as of all the others"; he admits that it is ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal mandate, but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and that they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty was therefore in very good humour. When they knelt before him, he graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, "This is my Lord of Canterbury's hand." "Yes, sir, his own hand," was the answer. James read the petition; he folded it up; and his countenance ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who were sitting on the sofa beside her. Presently, a thin, dark, sober-looking young man walked in at a side-door; it was Alonzo, Mrs. Hilson's husband. Honest, warm-hearted Mr. Hubbard soon followed, looking as usual, in a very good humour, and much pleased with the holiday he had provided for his daughters, and the satisfaction of seeing all his old friends in his new house, which he had prepared for himself. If ever there was a man who ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... yet paid,—Mr Scruby seldom allowed himself to suffer. It was true that the election would not take place till the summer; but there were preliminary expenses which needed ready money. Metropolitan voters, as Mr Scruby often declared, required to be kept in good humour,—so that Mr Scruby wanted the present payment of some five hundred pounds, and a well-grounded assurance that he would be put in full funds by the beginning of next June. Even Mr Scruby might not be true as perfect steel, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... but rather grimly: "I see, now, that this is no place for a broker who lives by his commissions." And he bade them adieu with perfect good humour. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... rather silent, through lunch, her eyes and mind were busy trying to read the secret of Dick's manner. The girl had impressed him strongly, that was evident, but why should she have occasioned this gloom in Dick who so very rarely allowed anything or anybody to ruffle his cheery good humour? ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... long before it reached the ears of one not disposed to receive the information with much satisfaction, and this was Barry Lynch, the proposed bride's amiable brother. The medium through which he first heard it was not one likely to add to his good humour. Jacky, the fool, had for many years been attached to the Kelly's Court family; that is to say, he had attached himself to it, by getting his food in the kitchen, and calling himself the lord's fool. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... habitations, who were happy enough to have one to shelter them from the inclemency of the season, and were hot obliged by business to expose themselves to its rigour, I was on a visit to Meadow Hall; where had assembled likewise a large party of young folk, who all seemed, by their harmony and good humour, to strive who should the most contribute to render pleasant that confinement which we were all equally obliged to share. Nor were those further advanced in life less anxious to contribute to the ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... brown eyes hardly looked at him, and the slender fingers never left their work for an instant; but a pleasant smile leapt into the stranger's face, and, ere the apology was voiced, he spoke with the utmost good humour. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... were not in good humour with Elizabeth, or James, they contrived three methods of inactivity, running the time to waste—nihil agendo, or aliud agendo, or male agendo; doing nothing, doing something else, or doing evilly.[A] In one of these irksome moments, waiting for subsidies, Elizabeth anxiously inquired ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the harbour, an enormous leviathan from whose funnels smoke poured in billowy masses. Tidemand had goods aboard; he had been waiting for this steamer the last two days, and he said in great good humour: ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... seats: the bride and bridegroom were in the centre, looking out on the gay landscape. Everybody talkt and drank healths, and all was mirth and good humour: the bride's parents were perfectly happy: the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, ate but little, and took ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... ladies endured with great philosophy the spretae injuria formae, and made no difference in their behaviour on account of their charms being unappreciated. Azizeh was a stout and sturdy personage of twenty-five, with thick wrists and ankles, a very dark skin, and a face rendered pleasing by good humour. And Azizeh was childless, a sad reproach in these lands, where progeny forms a man's wealth ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, since I dedicate it to You. Yet you may bear me witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good sense and good humour enough to laugh not only at their sex's little unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the air of a Secret, it soon found its way into the world. An imperfect copy having been ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... and among the wildest and most reckless men; but it is obvious that in other respects it must frequently have been found an inconvenience and even a danger, had it not been for her true patience, her unfailing good humour, and her indomitable "pluck." ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... camp was at a pleasant widening of the river with a low-lying, spacious beach of pebbles. I pitched my tent on higher ground on the edge of the jungle. Some of the Penyahbongs, always in good humour and enjoying themselves, went out with sumpitans to hunt pig, and about seven o'clock, on a beautiful starlit night, a big specimen was brought in, which I went to look at. While one man opened it by cutting lengthwise across the ribs, another was engaged taking out the poison-carrying, triangular ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... thee sing for noabody, unless thee likest it. If dost, thee'll have enow to do, I can tell thee." This was one of the little incidents of his life upon which he was accustomed to advert with pleasure; and often has he, with much good humour, contrasted it with the rude and indelicate conduct of persons of great pride and importance. No man that ever lived required less entreaty to oblige his convivial friends with his charming singing. Of the families ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Mrs. Elise, I am not in a good humour; I don't know what there is in the world to make people good-humoured. There now, your chair has torn a hole in my coat-lap! Is that pleasant? That's home-made too! But now I'll go; that is, if your doors—are they home-made too?—will let ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the palace. King Konrad Karl appeared decorated with all the stars, badges and ribbons which had fallen to him while he sat on the throne of Megalia. Madame Corinne wore the finest of the dresses she had acquired from the Queen, and was in high good humour, though a little vexed that her pearls were in the keeping of a banker in Paris. Smith felt that on such an occasion the dinner should be properly served, and he dared not leave it to the native servants. After dinner he consented to sit at ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... burns brightly when a person has poked or stirred it up, it is a sign that the absent lover, wife, or husband (as the case may be) is in good spirits, and in good humour. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... an armchair to sit upon, what could a young man in his twenty-second year want more? Under such circumstances he might have gone twenty-two times round the world! Was he not at the age of that practical philosophy which consists in good health and good humour? Ah! young people, travel if you can, and if ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... has returned fat and fair and in good humour, notwithstanding his disappointment,[224] which I am glad of. He comes over next week to a house in this neighbourhood. Pray come over this winter and join us.—I am, my dear ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... good humour. "Well, you can comfort yourself with the notion that you'll be coming again. The mountains'll stay here, all right," he assured her. The young people smiled back at him, and with this he rearranged his feet in a new posture on the opposite ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... able at once to classify Denis Malster among the "impossibles." She saw now how much more her recent trouble had been the outcome of wounded vanity, than of thwarted passion, and she was able to treat her former admirer with a lavish good humour and ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... quite in spirits and good humour. It may seem strange that a boy who was so lazy the day before, as to wish that hares ran about ready roasted, should work so hard this day at so severe a job as making a raft. But it was natural enough. There is nothing interesting to a dull and discontented person, all alone, ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... the King's court, and whenever Saul gave way to an attack of anger or depression, the young minstrel would hasten to him, and play melodies grave and gay, sweet and brilliant, playing with such skill that before he knew it, Saul would be in good humour again, or drop into a deep, refreshing sleep, and little did he dream that the lad who had such power to soothe and amuse him had been anointed by Samuel to rule over Israel in his place. That David thought often ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the abrupt reply, not over-abundantly expressive of good humour at this disturbance. Will looked again towards the flagon; but great was his dismay on beholding it in the very act of disemboguing its precious contents into another gulf as insatiable as his own. Ralph Newcome, incited thereto by his own discrimination, together with the resistless ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... not a patch on you; it's the sort of thing we say to our sitters to keep them in good humour. (He surveys ruefully a great stain on her frock.) I wish to heaven, Margaret, we were not both so fond of apple-tart. And what's this? (Catching hold of ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... laugh she was all sunshine. It was as if she. had been trying to taunt him into good humour with her. "Aw, now, Rufus, don't be angry. I'll be good, Rufus. Really, I will. Listen. I want to tell you something. Do you know what I did? Well, you know, I never was cut out for this business, and, back there, when you told me about the Turks being near and all that sort of thing, I was frightened ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... her for liking Lily—he thought it was for her own sake. Of course, he was often unexpectedly set upon and tomahawked by the impetuous lady; but the gay captain put on his scalp again, and gathered his limbs together, and got up in high good humour, and shook himself and smiled, after his dismemberment, like one of the old soldiers of the Walhalla—and they were never the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... struggle to cage her latest prize. The silvery and enticing voice had for answer—"Take (bamboo); just plain boiled, with syrup and sho[u]yu." Then timidly, as he sought her good will—"Just a little wine; two go (a pint) ... say five go." She laughed with good humour. His choice among this bevy of beauties at last had fallen spontaneously on herself. The conquest pleased her. Then he was well stuffed with coarse foods, hunted out of the supplies for the grooms and stablemen in the palace kitchen, with sake of a harsh and burning kind—"which had some ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Barclay feels; he didn't leave me in any doubt about that," smiled the boy, "when I left his office that morning after telling him what I was going to do. So," he sighed and smiled in rather hopeless good humour, "I can't see my way ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... man!—O her beloved Clary!' (for then she was ready to love me dearly, from the overflowings of her good humour on his account!) 'He was but too handsome a man for her!—Were she but as amiable as somebody, there would be a probability of holding his affections!—For he was wild, she heard; very wild, very gay; loved intrigue—but he was young; a man of sense: would see his error, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... full of fun and happy comic fancies. The tale would put the sourest-tempered boy into a good humour, and to an imaginative child would be ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... event now some months old entirely restored Alice's good humour. Norma had accepted a certain almost-new hat from Leslie just before the wedding, and Alice, burning with her secret suspicion as to Norma's parentage, and in the first flush of her affection for the girl, had told Norma that ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... Muse to give him "humour and good humour." What novelist was ever so rich in both? Who ever laughed at mankind with so much affection for mankind in his heart? This love shines in every book of his. The poor have all his good-will, and in him an untired advocate and friend. What a life the poor led in the England of 1742! There never before ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... If any one approached he snapped at them and endeavoured to bite them. I asked the man why he kept him, and he replied that they had quite good sport in the trenches when they allowed the hawk to hunt small birds and field mice. Then his expression changing from jovial good humour to grimness, he added, "You know, I call him 'Zepp,' because he kills the little ones," ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... lasting Wit is the Result of fine Imagination, finished Study, and a happy Temper of Body. As no one pleases more than the Man of Wit, none is more liable to offend; therefore he shou'd have a Fancy quick to conceive, Knowledge, good Humour, and Discretion to direct the whole. Wit often leads a Man into Misfortunes, that his Prudence wou'd have avoided; as it is the Means of raising a Reputation, so it sometimes destroys it. He who affects to be always witty, renders himself cheap, and, perhaps, ridiculous. The great Use ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... came back to give her father his dinner. He had made a good speculation in the City, and was rather in a good humour that day, and chanced to remark the agitation under which she laboured. "What's the matter, Miss Osborne?" he ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... law of incompetence spreads still further, either by some process of logical necessity or by a sort of contagion. It has often been made the subject of merriment, for, like all tragedy, when we regard it with good humour the matter has its comic side, that it is very rare for any high office to be given to a man who is competent for the post. Generally the Minister of Education is a lawyer; the Minister of Commerce, ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... receive with the other things. You ask me about Lord Tho[mon]d(66) and Will: all [the] party is so broke up at present that they are au desespoir. The Bedfords are in extraordinary good humour; that elevation of spirit does them no more credit than their precedent abasement; the equus animus seems a stranger to them. G. Greenv.(67) is certainly [befouled] as a Minister, but he is so well manured in other respects that he cannot be an ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... answer, and the answer of the oldest men, was that their ancestors always did it; that it was a preservative against Geasa-Dravideacht, i.e. the sorceries of Druids; that their cattle was preserved by it from infectious disorders; that the davini maithe, i.e. the fairies, were kept in good humour by it; and so thoroughly persuaded were they of the sanctity of these pagan practices that they would travel bareheaded and barefooted from ten to twenty miles for the purpose of crawling on their knees round these wells and upright stones and oak trees westward as the sun travels, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... intellect and affections, and had brought him to think, as indeed Father Holt thought, with all his heart too, that no life was so noble, no death so desirable, as that which many brethren of his famous order were ready to undergo. By love, by a brightness of wit and good humour that charmed all, by an authority which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which increased the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty, and would have kept it, doubtless, if schemes greater ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... athwart it, swept back in those thick luxuriant coils which are the unfailing index of a strong womanly nature. Her deep blue eyes danced with life and light, while her slightly retrousse nose and her sensitive smiling mouth all spoke of gentle good humour. From her sunny face to the dainty little shoe which peeped from under the trim black skirt, she was an eminently pleasant object to look upon. So thought the passers-by as they glanced up at the great ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that Jim was to form one of the party. Horner also got leave to go. Though he and I were on good terms, I can't say I looked upon him as a friend, but I was well pleased that he should have a run on shore, as I hoped that it would put him in good humour, for of late he had become one of the most constant grumblers on board. I even now recollect the pleasure I felt on thus once more treading the firm ground, as, except for the short time I had landed on Juan Fernandez, I hadn't ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... good humour recovered the next minute, at the Fountain of Lions. She wanted to know how the Moors came to have lions; she thought she had heard that no Mahometans were allowed to represent any living creature, for fear it should be an ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... left London for Paris, Carlyle by his own request was their companion on the journey. Mrs Browning feared that his irritable nerves would suffer from the vivacities of little Pen, but it was not so; he accepted with good humour the fact that the small boy had not yet learned, like his own Teufelsdroeckh, the Eternal No: "Why, sir," exclaimed Carlyle, "you have as many aspirations as Napoleon!"[47] At Dieppe, Browning, as Carlyle records, "did ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... bands to which I have ever listened. As may be supposed, we did not fail to become partakers in the scene, or to relish it greatly; for the music is superb, the view over the valley of the Taia beautiful, and the bearing of the company at once decorous and full of good humour. But having accomplished this, and wandered through the greater number of the streets, having visited the public buildings, and made more than half the circuit of the ramparts, we felt that our business in Bruenn was completed. We accordingly ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... at this moment was not in a good humour. He was becoming almost tired of his efforts to set other people straight, so great were the difficulties that came in his way. As he had driven into his own gate he had met Mr. Puddleham, standing in the road just in front of the new chapel. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... in fact, these four young men were almost hilarious. They were Charles Segouin, the owner of the car; Andre Riviere, a young electrician of Canadian birth; a huge Hungarian named Villona and a neatly groomed young man named Doyle. Segouin was in good humour because he had unexpectedly received some orders in advance (he was about to start a motor establishment in Paris) and Riviere was in good humour because he was to be appointed manager of the establishment; these two young men (who were cousins) ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... When in good humour his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a slight pinch of the ear. In his most friendly conversations with those whom he admitted into his intimacy he would say, "You are a fool"—"a ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... heartily at the unexpected turn thus given to her complaint; and Bert, seeing both his parents in such good humour, added a beaming face on his own account, although, of course, without having the slightest idea as to the cause of ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the Ramadan. Weather extremely sultry. People bear the fast remarkably well, and with good humour enough. The Rais persists in sending me supper though I would rather he did not. After mass and chanting prayers in the evening, his Excellency holds a court. He abused the Sultan of Constantinople and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... told it me one day, brother, when she was in a good humour, which she very seldom was, as no one has a better right to know than yourself, as she hated you mortally: it was one day when you had been asking our company what was the word for a leaf, and nobody could tell you, that she ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... scattered about a garden. I have installed myself in the joss-house, my bedroom being on one side, and my sitting-room on the other, of the idol's altar. We have a letter informing us that the Emperor has named two great Officers of State to come here and treat, and our Admirals are in very good humour, so that matters look well for ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... received, as hath been said, Into the best society: and there Occurr'd what often happens, I 'm afraid, However disciplined and debonnaire:— The talent and good humour he display'd, Besides the mark'd distinction of his air, Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation, Even though ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... was young, extremely handsome, of the most approved good humour, and suffering in his precarious station from suppressed high spirits. Nei Takauti, the wife, was getting old; her grown son by a former marriage had just hanged himself before his mother's eyes in despair at a well-merited rebuke. Perhaps she had never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good Sophie," she cried, and she was in such good humour that she allowed the maid to brush her hair and put on her habit without uttering a single cross word ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... it away careful in his breast pocket, 'the King can't break his word, I guess,' and wid that he winks at the rest of them, and they says, says they: 'That's one on you, yer Majesty!' But they couldn't put him in good humour, and they do say, Ma, that when the company was gone that that man cut up somethin' rough, cursed and swore, and chewed up sticks, and frothed at the mouth like a mad dog, and sure, the very next day, when he was driving through a place called 'The Wash,' drunk as an owl, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... response to Mendelssohn's call was a sturdily built man of thirty, or thereabouts, with an air of mingled courage, resolution, and good humour. His long straight hair was brushed back from a broad, intellectual brow, and his thoughtful, far-looking eyes intensified the impression he gave of force and original power. He smiled humorously. "All the youth, beauty and intellect of Leipzig in one room. ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... a loud jovial clamour at the door, and at my cry it flew open. Colonel Royale entered precipitately, beaming with good humour. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... any more about it until you have read the poems which I send you. Read first, to put you into good humour, the sonnet written on Westminster Bridge, vol. iii. page 78. Then take from the sixth volume, page 152, the passage beginning 'Within the soul' down to page 153 at 'despair,' and again at page ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... ancient story, which represents him as giving his revenues for a year to one of the Court Poets and then fighting him with a "headless staff" to compel the Poet to return them, it would appear that his good humour and profusion were equal to his horsemanship. Finding Brian's influence still on the increase west of the Shannon, Malachy, in the year of our Lord 1000, threw two bridges across the Shannon, one at Athlone, the other at the present Lanesborough. This he did with the consent and assistance ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... be shaded instantly by the huge hand of the individual who held it, and who proved to be the other spokesman—he of the pleasant voice—who had listened to the suggestion of his comrade without answering. The reflection of the flame held in his palm lit up at first a face beaming with health and good humour, heavily moustached, and as red as was Stuart's. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and Henri, attracted by the light, watched as this German officer puffed at the flame and then ejected a cloud of smoke. His own features, too, were illuminated by that reflected light, and those of Jules ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... a good humour, sire, I can regale you with a capital little sermon, always appropriate, and which I have kept under the tympanum of my left ear in order to deliver it in a fit place, by way of an ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... quite over, however, Graeme thought in the morning. For Rose seemed to think it necessary to give a good deal of her time to household matters, whether it was still with a view to the good humour of Hannah or not, was not easy to say. But she could only give a divided attention to their visitor, and to the account of all that he and Will had done and enjoyed together. Graeme and he walked up and down ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... it had been vouchsafed to him that in spite of a multitude of trained servants there were still things that he could do for himself better than anybody else could do for him, and among them was the act of waking up Mr. Prohack. He knew that he was in a very good humour, capable of miracles, and he therefore determined that he would seize the opportunity to find the human side of Mr. Brool and make a friend of him. But the tea-tray was brought in by Mrs. Prohack, who was completely and severely ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... commendation to an individual fate; and here I seem to grasp the root of their philosophy—it was to be free from care, to be free to make these Sunday wanderings, that they so eagerly pursued after wealth; and all this carefulness was to be careless. The fine, good humour of all three seemed to declare they had attained their end. Yet there was the other side to it; and the recipients of kettles ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with which I had been long familiar. I told them how I had been trapped. The story put the audience in good humour and they helped me along with very generous applause. And so began my career in politics which has brought me more honour than I deserved although I know it has not been wholly without value to my country. It enabled me to repay in part ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... reason I have disposed of her to a man of business, who will soon let her see that to be well dressed, in good humour, and cheerful in the command of her family, are the arts and sciences of female life. I could have bestowed her upon a fine gentleman, who extremely admired her wit, and would have given her a coach and six, but I found it absolutely necessary ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... flowers looked as though they wanted rain, went off to his work. The cloud which had been on his spirits for some time had lifted, and he whistled as he walked. The sight of flowers in front windows added to his good humour. ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... that day in high good humour, drank a couple of glasses of port, and retired (as his custom was on warm afternoons) to his back-parlour, for an hour's siesta. Through the open window he heard the residue of his pigeons murmuring in their cotes, and the sound wooed him to slumber. So for half ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and too dainty critic, humour of the most delicate sort—not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of Lamb, or Sterne, or Goldsmith, or Washington Irving. Granted freely; not humour of that special character. But very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce—the humour that finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and eccentric, that irradiates ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... Irishman. Of an evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... like black-beetles, to his spacious, warm, and slovenly mansion; all these ate whatever came to hand, but ate their fill, drank themselves drunk, and carried off what they could, lauding and magnifying the amiable host; and the host, when he was not in a good humour, also magnified his guests—as drones and blackguards—but he was bored without them. Piotr Andreitch's wife was a meek person: he took her from a neighbouring family, at his father's choice and command; her name was Anna ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... grave face, and talking wisely among them was little calculated to further the traveller's views. On the contrary, I aspired to the title of a merry fellow; I joked with them whenever I could, and found that by a little attention to their ways of thinking and reasoning, they are easily put into good humour. This kind of behaviour, however, is to be observed only in places where one makes a stay of several days, or towards fellow travellers: in passing rapidly through Arab encampments, it is better for the traveller not to be too ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... least—was perhaps mostly courage. If for no other reason, one would hope for a hereafter—so that Charles II and Heine may have met and compared notes upon dying. Heine was indeed an "unconscionable long time a-dying," but then he died with such brilliant patience, with such good humour, and, in the meanwhile, contrived to write such haunting poetry, ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... when I undertook the business. I had intended, when I finished my English history, to set myself quietly down to Charles the Fifth, and spend the rest of my life on him. I might have been half through by this time, and the world all in good humour with me. My ill star was uppermost when I laid this aside. There are objections to every course which I can follow. The arguments for and against were so many and so strong that Carlyle himself could not ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... vegetables grown on the spot, a symbol of stable occupation. The story, if it be true, is admirably French; for it reveals at once the wit and the peasant. But the humour of the Englishman was worthily equal to the wit of the Frenchman; and it was humour of that sane sort which we call good humour. Political papers in pacific England and France raved and ranted over the crisis, responsible journals howled with jingoism; but through it all, until the moment when the French agreed to retire, the two most placable and ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... southward. Eddie sat silently looking out of the window, envying his brother's high spirits; he could not think what made Bertie so happy when he felt discontented and miserable, and thoroughly dissatisfied with everything in the world. Agnes, too, seemed infected with some of Bertie's good humour; her eyes sparkled, her cheeks flushed, and she laughed merrily at the utter nonsense her cousin chattered incessantly, while poor Eddie hugged his discontent, and made the most of his misery. And yet he had no real cause to be unhappy: every ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... cheek. I saw her watching Mistress Nell once or twice with a look of amazement—for she knew who she was—for Nell, though she was not on the stage, bore herself as though she were, and never ceased for an instant, though full of merriment and good humour, to turn herself this way and that, and bow to her friends, some of whom relished it very little; and to applaud very heartily, and then, immediately to throw a great piece of orange peel at Mr. Harris, who played the King. She ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... MacDermott paid a high compliment to her nephew. She promised to mount him on the bay mare and take him out hunting. She had satisfied herself that Johnny Gafferty was not mistaken and that the young man really could ride. Bertram, excited and in high good humour, succeeded, before she had time to protest, in giving her a ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... Westminster Palace Hotel, and that fellow John Crondall is to give an address afterwards on 'Imperial Interests and Imperial Duties.' I'll give you your fling on this up to half a column—three-quarters if it's good enough; but, be careful. A sort of contemptuous good humour will be the best line to take. Make 'em ridiculous. And don't forget to convey the idea of the whole business being plutocratic. You know the sort of thing: Park Lane Israelites, scooping millions, at the expense of the overtaxed proletariat ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... of the world was really limited to what she had learned from her mother, after she had come back from the convent six months before the crash, and it was an odd mixture of limitations and exaggerations. When the Princess was in a good humour she believed in everybody; when she was not, which was when she had no money to throw away, she attributed the basest motives to all mankind. According to her moods, she had encouraged Sabina to look forward to a life of perpetual pleasure, or had assured her with energy ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... to be genial. I must guard the reader against accepting Kirstie's epithets as evidence; she was more concerned for their vigour than for their accuracy. Dwaibly, for instance; nothing could be more calumnious. Frank was the very picture of good looks, good humour, and manly youth. He had bright eyes with a sparkle and a dance to them, curly hair, a charming smile, brilliant teeth, an admirable carriage of the head, the look of a gentleman, the address of one accustomed to please at first sight and to improve the impression. And with all these advantages, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made a promise to Hardy to do his fair share of the more remunerative work. Before keeping it, he was giving a few final touches to one of the figures in his Dante study of Paolo and Francesca, swept like leaves on the wind of hell. He was in high good humour, and as he worked he talked incessantly, quoting from an imaginary review. "In the genius of Mr. Edward Haviland we have a new Avatar of the spirit of Art. Mr. Haviland is the disciple of no school. He owes no debt either to the past or to the present. He works in a noble freedom from prejudice ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... brother who needs me the sympathy he wants, and if not, of what use am I in the world? Think what some lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... been dropped and perfect good humour was restored again. Michael's thoughts had soared into what Freddy called his "Kingdom of Idle Dreams." Freddy's thoughts were very practical, although they related to the history of a lost civilization and to the unearthing of objects which the sands of the desert had concealed for thousands ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... I look at the gloomy side? Why not believe, while I can, that it will end well after all? I may find you in a good humour to-night—or, if not, I may succeed better to-morrow morning. I sha'n't improve my plain face by fretting—shall I? Who knows but I may have filled all these weary long pages of paper for nothing? They will go, for safety's sake (never mind now for ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... however, not in good humour; she was nervous and a little petulant. She had a high-strung temperament, a sensitive perception of the fitness of things, and a horror of what was gauche; and she would, in brief, make a rather austere person if the lines of life did not run in her favour. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... book, or a manuscript, or something or other that Lady Cumnor wanted with all an invalid's impatience. It was just the kind of employment she required for an amusement on a gloomy day, and it put her into a good humour immediately. There was a certain confidential importance about it, and it was a variety, and it gave her the pleasant drive in a fly up the noble avenue, and the sense of being the temporary mistress of all the grand rooms once so familiar to her. She asked Molly to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to be observed both by the mayor and aldermen, as well as by the inhabitants of the city at large. The waytes, or watchmen, were ordered to perambulate the streets every night with their minstrels to keep the citizens in good humour (pro recreacione hominum), and prevent robbery. Nevertheless, there is evidence to show that disturbances did occasionally arise between the inhabitants and those in the suite of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... is so; I hope we shall get him. The old man is pretty cranky over it. He hasn't a nice temper even when he's in a good humour, and there will be blue fire blazing if Mr. Frewen does lose the fish ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... explain that a temple had been erected to Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter's hand without difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma, and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy. I ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... excuse for introducing a series of epitaphs; but the epitaphs amply atone for it. That on Garrick is especially remarkable as a bit of character-sketching; its shrewd hints—all in perfect courtesy and good humour—going a little nearer to the truth than is common ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... reflections by sitting down beside a family of small children, who squalled in different keys, and treating one of them to a ride on his foot, which favour, being distributed impartially, presently restored good humour. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... discourse. I treated him with marked deference, that I might form an acquaintance, and found before we parted that night, that I had succeeded. Our dinner was excellent, and we were all, except Mr Estcourt, in high good humour. We sat late—too late to go to the theatre, and promising to meet the next day at noon, Harcourt and ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... not many hundreds of persons, in jest or earnest, made love to her? What else can a pretty woman expect who is much before the public? And so the worthy mother counselled her daughter to bear these attentions with good humour, rather than to make them a subject of perpetual ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... — [teasingly, but with good humour.] — I do be thinking odd times we don't know rightly what way you have your splendour, or asking myself, maybe, if you have it at all, for the time I was a young lad, and had fine sight, it was the ones with sweet voices were the ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... Your admiration or your life!' Those Frenchmen don't mind it because it only repeats what they're always saying themselves, but if you're a foreigner it gets on your nerves. That city is too uniformly fine to be of much use to me—it keeps me all the time wondering why I'm not in one eternal good humour to match. There's good old London now—always looks, I should think, just as you feel. Looks like history, too, and change, and contrast, and the different ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... with a grin; and then she expanded into further reminiscences of that occasion, by which time she was in such a good humour that she began to feel hungry, and under the stimulating influences of food and champagne she told her uncle the whole story of her intimacy with ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... him in a good humour, he is pleased, though the poor little chaps are very far from being "beaux." They seem almost too stupefied to understand the sweets, but they know the way to put them ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... in View, ought always to tell the Truth. But as he is at Liberty to chuse his manner of telling it, so that Method of Instruction ought to be observ'd in Characteristic-Writings, which will keep up the good Humour of the Reader, altho' he is, at the same Time, made sensible of his Errors. And this Artifice ought industriously to be pursu'd, since the proper Management of it is so necessary to the Success of Characteristic-Writings. For those who love ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... been wondering what sort of scenery would accord best with Mr. Severance's proposal. I suppose a glacier would be about the correct thing, for I imagine Archie is rather cold and sneering when he is not in very good humour. The lake would be too placid for his proposal; and when one is near the rapids, one cannot hear what the man is saying. I think the Kohleren Gorge would be just the spot; it is so wild and romantic, with a hundred waterfalls dashing down the precipices. I must ask Archie if he has ever seen the ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... prepossessing. In early life, she was handsome; and although latterly her figure had attained some degree of fulness, it had lost none of its ease and grace, whilst her pleasing features, marked by no lines of painful thought, were open and expressive, beaming with animation and good humour. She had not the slightest tinge of pedantry in her manner and deportment, which were natural and affable, so that a stranger never felt otherwise than at ease in her society. It was not her ambition to make a display ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... powerful a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish'd in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any three taking up still where ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the comforts we enjoyed, in short, put us all in good humour with one another; while a fellowship in misfortune, and a community of feeling, as well as of persons, introduced a degree of friendliness and intimacy, to which few other circumstances, perhaps, would have given rise. We had our small round of standard jokes, peculiar to our situation, which few ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... had to make me beloved, for the assurance of my life made me resolve to offer myselfe for to serve, and to take party with them. But I feared much least he should mistrust me touching his advis to my resolution. Neverthelesse I finding him once of a good humour and on the point of honnour encourages his son to break the kettle and take the hattchett and to be gon to the forraigne nations, and that was of courage and of great renowne to see the father of one parte and the son of another part, & that he should not mispraise if he should seperat ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... Wotherspoon is in a good humour," he continues, "and the constable's head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may get off with forty shillings ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... with the most delicious equality and freedom from restraint. Lord and commoner, peer and peasant, marquis and merchant, are thrown into immediate contact, and hob-nob without restriction or ceremony. The unalloyed joviality and good humour of the host is imparted to the guests, and while as a dispenser of creature comforts Mr. Dalglish stands almost alone, he has a suavity of manner that disarms party feeling, and compels a favour when it is asked for. It is not to ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... after this to be of a very good humour; and when he knew that the sultan was returning, he went to meet him, and paid him his compliments with a great deal of gaiety. Schahriar at first took no notice of this great alteration, but expostulated with him modestly, why he would not bear him company at hunting the stag; and, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... me, in this green valley quickened by a running stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature's good humour was only skin-deep, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... depended on him now. The Queen was in a good humour, and such a chance might never occur again;—and meantime James Maxwell waited in ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... loved, and made much of, not for anything he had ever taken the trouble to do, but partly for his own sake, and partly on account of his position. Such charm as he had for women lay in his frankness, good humour, and simplicity of character. That he had appeared to be changeable in his affection was merely due to the fact that he had never been in love. He vaguely recognised the fact in his inner consciousness, though he would have said that he had ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Walter had dined, for our man of the world knew that it is the tendency of that meal to abate our activity, while it increases our good humour, the Corporal presented himself to his master, with a ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... It was at Mrs. Vesey's evening parties, given on the Tuesdays on which the Club dined at the "Turk's Head," that he often had long chats with Hannah More. She had to forget what she called his political malefactions, before she could allow herself to admire his high spirits and good humour. This was after the events of the Coalition, and her Memoirs, like the change in the mind of the Dissenters towards Burke, show what a fall that act of faction was believed to mark in his character. When he was rejected for Bristol, she moralised on the ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Barker, late adjutant of his regiment. Barker had a great deal to tell James of mutual acquaintance, and the pair dined together, going afterwards to a music-hall. James felt in better spirits than for some time past, and his good humour carried him well into the following day. In the afternoon, while he was reading a paper, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... sea; I went to the Ship at Dover. I wrote a letter to Admiral Foley, in order that he might forward the news by the telegraph; I was obliged to do that—it was my duty;" and then still more to put them in good humour, he handed out to them some wine, which he had brought from Dover.—He said to them, do not talk of this news as you go along—as soon as you have parted with me you may tell who you please; by and by he said, Pray where can I get a hackney coach? the first stand, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... "though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There were certain fine old houses near that Mrs. Flaxman ought ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "The precepts of Tusser indeed are so excellent, that few can read them without profit and improvement; he appears to have possessed such a degree of pious resignation to the will of the Supreme, of christian charity, and of good humour, under all his miscarriages, that his character rises high in our esteem, independent of his merits as a writer. The cultivated and liberal mind of Tusser seems to have been ill-suited to his fortune, and to his ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton |
