"Mirthful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trying to evade the thorns which entangled his habit of guingon as if to detain him; there trying to step over the roots of the trees which stuck up through the ground and made the inexperienced traveler stumble again and again. Suddenly he stopped. Mirthful laughter and the sound of young voices reached his ears. The voices and the laughter seemed to come from the direction of the brook and each time seemed ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... Cynically mirthful or irreverently indifferent, yet never did her master's strength forsake him, never did his heart lose its undauntedness. And when he bade Mary Connynge do this or that she obeyed him; when he bade her arise she ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed, with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards every prime interest of the community—health and comfort, well-being of body and of soul—their social instinct ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... and is mirthful then: The woods are vocal, and the flowers all odour; Its very blast has mirth in't,—and the maidens, The while they don their cloaks to screen their kirtles, Laugh at the rain that wets ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... time its character changed; it was no longer gay, triumphant and mirthful. The very spirit of love and pathos seemed to breathe through it. My heart beat; every nerve thrilled; every sense answered to ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that hour there flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they were called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirthful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or if not mirthful, yet instinct with a portentous joviality. Nay, and it seemed even human. As when savage men have drunk away their reason, and, discarding speech bawl together in their madness by the hour; so, to my ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strength of frame and limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness, and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall, but pale, meagre, stooping, and with a careworn, anxious, hungry look, which made the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child,—the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation,—soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had been paid and receipts duly given, when the old man raised his eyes and fixed them on Mary's face. She had been sitting back in the deep recess of a window, terribly afraid of a mirthful explosion from Mark, and therefore drawing herself as far out of sight as possible; but now a bright ray of sunshine cast itself full on her sweet, loving features, and as Mr Tankardew caught their expression he uttered a sudden exclamation, and stood ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... then, I might well come to an end, and deny myself the pleasure of a last few words indited for my own comfort and to please a greedy recollection. The children, if they read, will laugh. Have you not seen the mirthful wonder that spreads on a girl's face when she comes by chance on some relic of her father's wooing, a faded wreath that he has given her mother, or a nosegay tied with a ribbon and a poem attached thereto? She will look in her father's ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... squares of gold. The table was set under the shadowing branches of a great tree, for it was early summer and the sun shone in his strength. So Concobar and Fergus, lightly laughing, affectionate and mirthful, the challenger and the challenged, came forth through the wide doorway of the dun. Armed youths went with them. The right arm of Fergus was cast lightly over the shoulder of Concobar, and his ear was inclined to him as the young king talked, for their mutual affection was very great and ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... asked, with mirthful eyes, "that a party in the South had the power to array your section against the North again, would ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... power of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess, But the Rover's ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... nature of the case, they condoled the family on their misfortune, and would have retired, on the supposition that it would defeat the mirthful intent of their meeting; but the jeweller, mustering up his whole temper and hospitality, entreated them to excuse his disorder, and favour him with their company, which, he observed, was now more ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... lived for other women a life in which you had no part, and never can have part!—she realizes that, at one time or another, and—and it sickens her." Mrs. Pendomer smiled as she echoed his phrase, but her eyes were not mirthful. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... of all,' she said, feeling, though hardly expressing to herself the repose of his lofty, silent serenity, standing aloof from gaiety and noise. She could have compared him and her lively cousin to the evening stillness contrasted with the mirthful scene in the tent; and though her nature seemed to belong to the busy world, her best enjoyment lay with what calmed and raised her above herself; and she was perfectly happy, standing still with her arm upon that of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the party, making up bouquets as a gift for mamma, or some favorite aunt—cutting paper into fantastic figures, and placing them upon the wall to please children, or dressing a doll for little sister? Who would not rather see their young daughter a jumping delicate little romp, chasing a bird in mirthful glee, as if she verily thought she ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... get about at once," said Tom Long, speaking as if his weight in the scale would completely make Sultan Hamet kick the beam; but upon seeing the mirthful look in Bob Roberts' eye, he changed the subject, and began talking about how he longed to be out and ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... he said as his eyes filled, and he saw before him the great, bearded face with the kindly, mirthful eyes, and heard the deep, gruff voice. "How can I tell ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... evening when Hope stood again on the veranda of the Magician's, bungalow, and listened to the water running through the reeds. She thought it sounded louder than in the morning—- more insistent, less mirthful. She shivered a little as she stood there. She felt lonely; her uncle was away for a couple of days, and Ronnie was in his room. She was bracing herself to go and rouse him to dress for mess. Slowly, at last, she turned to go. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... yourself, granny! Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! haw, haw, haw!" shouted a mirthful voice, while an indescribably comic face, half cat and half baby, appeared for a single glimpse above the burdock leaf behind which the spinsters ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... months after this conversation, and Linden and I found ourselves alone over the dessert—the young people having gone out for a stroll, attracted doubtless by the gay aspect of the Thames, which flows past the miniature grounds attached to the villa. Never had I seen Mr. Linden in so gay, so mirthful a mood. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... a delectable little Puritan," said Masters with a laugh that was not wholly mirthful. "I shall now read you Tennyson's 'Maud,' as you approve of sentiment, at least. Tennyson will never cause the downfall of any woman, but if you ever see lightning on the horizon don't read 'The Statue and the Bust' with ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... heard his father laugh. The problem of supplying food was a somber one to John Clemens; also, he was working on a perpetual-motion machine at this period, which absorbed his spare time, and, to the inventor at least, was not a mirthful occupation. Jane Clemens was busy, too. Her sense of humor did not die, but with added cares and years her temper as well as her features became sharper, and it was just as well to be fairly out of range when she was busy ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... cheerful and mirthful, because he had recovered his memory. "Aha, my dear, all is well! You are twenty-one, and I am seventy-five; and Mr. Arbuthnot will go and bring home the—the inheritance. And I shall sit here all day long. It was a good dream that ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... the mulatto. The scarlet cloth wound about the head of a Turk seemed to turn to actual flame. Under the baleful light vacant faces of dully honest English rustics became malignant, while the negro, dancing with long, outstretched arms and uncouth swayings to and fro, appeared a mirthful fiend. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the river, to see the freshmen's boat in which he generally performed, go plunging away past the University barge, keeping three different times with four oars, and otherwise demeaning itself so as to become an object of mirthful admiration ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... and lit up her countenance with a sweetness, a loveliness, which was strange, and sometimes startling, from the brilliancy of its expression. A ruddy glow, like the blush of a summer sunset, dwelt in either cheek, and a slight contraction at both corners of the mouth gave her face a half-mirthful look; but her forehead, full in the upper and lateral portions, seemed almost too severely intellectual for the other features. She possessed a wealth of luxuriant black hair, which she had a quaint method of coiling around her head ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... eyes dancing with mirthful amusement, Lynette looked from one to the other of the unexpected visitors, and, tactfully changing the subject of the conversation, hoped that they were enjoying their trip?—a query which so obviously failed to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... kind he wanted, although he could have wished it to have been on a fully smaller and humbler scale. This was a large hotel, in which every window was blazing with light, and the rooms were filled with mirthful music. Donald's first impression was that it was a penny wedding upon a great scale. It was, in truth, a masquerade; and as the brandy which he had drunk in the earlier part of the evening was still in his head, he proposed to himself ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... for the future from a super-abundance of frills, since the character of a diligent legal native student was a precious lily that needed no princely gilding, and adding that he was indebted to me for a most entertaining and mirthful evening. This I do not understand, as I had not uttered any of the facetious puns and conceits wherewith it is my wont—when I will[1]—to set the table ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he was remembering a boy whom he had known of very long ago. He was swayed by an odd fancy, as the men sat over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed tricks for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and excellent, as ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... and its privilege to light up with some sort of comfort the squalidest places, he had made his own. Christmas Day was not more social or welcome: New Year's Day not more new: Twelfth Night not more full of characters. The duty of diffusing enjoyment had never been taught by a more abundant, mirthful, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... seen weeping for pity; for people wept and laughed at the representations, openly and noisily, "wepynge bitere teris." Besides, there are men of different sorts, and some are so made that they cannot be converted but by mirthful means, "by gamen and pley"; and such performances do them much good. Must not, on the other hand, all men have "summe recreatioun"? Better it is, "or lesse yvele, that thei han thyre recreacoun by pleyinge of myraclis than bi pleyinge of other japis." ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the generous there is nothing like a walk down Bongent Street, where will be found many ingenious novelties designed especially for the mirthful anniversary which will so soon be on us with all its associations of peace ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... palace hall Peasant and king keep festival, And childhood wears a fairer guise, And tenderer shine all mother-eyes; The aged man forgets his years, The mirthful heart is doubly gay, The sad are cheated of their tears, For Christ the Lord was born ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... the body of Peter Snell, Thirty years clerk of this Parish. He lived respected as a pious and mirthful man, and died on his way to church to assist at a wedding, on the 31st of March, 1811, Aged ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Posey's mirthful spirits make him always a welcome visitor in the cabins that, tucked away among trees and bowlders, shelter the lone mountaineers. But of all those who live within the circuit of his peregrinations his particular chum is Win Davis—"J. Winthrop Davis" is the name painted in big, black letters on ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Suddenly she realized. It was the life of the camp. Hundreds and thousands of men were there together, and as the night advanced the low roar rose and fell, and lulled away to come again—strange, sad, hideous, mirthful. For a long time Allie ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Wall street, and holds them up to public scorn. His dramatic power is extraordinary. He can hardly be responsible for it, since it breaks forth almost without his will. He moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile to their lips, with a power that is irresistible. His illustrations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, and are fresh and striking. He can startle his hearers with the terrors of the law, but he ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... or extensive budgets of human business laid on us; and there, if we don't know Justice, we, and all our budgets and Acts of Parliament, shall find lodging when the day is done!"—The official person, a polite man otherwise, grinned as he best could some semblance of a laugh, mirthful as that of the ass eating thistles, and ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... then her face softened. "You English!" she said, only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! you remember me when I was a high hearted young sorceress. Now the powers of the Apsarasas have departed from me, and time has thrust that Alianora, who was once the Unattainable Princess, chin deep in misery. Yet even now I am your Queen, messire, and ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... really injuring her looks. How wearily she had striven to prevent letting a tear fall upon the tinted paper, what heroic courage she had expended in finding sportive turns of speech, subdued, even mirthful expressions, could not be perceived in the little missive. Robert read it with distrust, but, in spite of the most cautious scrutiny, he did not find a single word whose vehemence could disquiet him, not a single letter which was nervously emphasized ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... like years with herself, and she gripped him to her soul in wild interest and new curiosity. Yet this childish friendship was so new and incomprehensible a thing to her that she did not know how to express it. At first she pounced upon him in mirthful, almost impish glee, teasing and mocking and half scaring him, despite his fifteen ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... me the sportive jest, The mirthful jibe, the gay reflection; These social baubles fly the breast That owns ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... to lead you out of a narrow way," she replied, in a tone so quiet and yet so rich that I was inclined to believe I had not yet seen Miss Warren. Perhaps she saw that I was becoming conscious of her existence, for I again detected the old mirthful light in her eyes. Was I or Mr. Yocomb's ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... them to leave the coach," said Miss Cantire faintly, as she took her handkerchief from her wet and mirthful eyes. "But ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... heart some axioms of his doctrine, and she had always thought of the sage as a young man; but in advanced age, she fancied, he might have looked like Eusebius. Aye, and it would have well beseemed this old man to die, like the great Athenian, at a mirthful wedding-feast. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the wonderful power of adaptation which makes him of all men the best cosmopolitan, he never is quite perfect in his assumption of another nationality, and he generally falls short of a thorough appreciation of its mirthful principle. If he emigrate to France, he soon feasts upon frogs as freely and speaks with as accurate an accent as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... time, and day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes be,— He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty—the paltry clime It will grow golden in his palm, Who bides ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... ratification meeting in Springfield. There were posters, illuminations, a band of music,—and at the appointed hour, one man in the hall besides Lincoln and Herndon! Lincoln took the platform, began with words half-sad, half-mirthful, and concluded: "All seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn, and appeal ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... address, intelligent, smart, and promising, though quite accustomed to enjoy much pastime. He was a fashionable young man for the times, wearing "dark brown hair, tied behind with blue ribbon; clear, mirthful eyes; boots which reached above his knees; a broad-skirted, scarlet coat, with gold lace on the cuffs, the collar, and the skirts; and a long waistcoat of blue silk. His breeches were buckskin; his hat was three-cornered, set jauntily higher on the right than on the left side." ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... was with so long—Miss Wickham, you know—has made me a present of it. Five hundred pounds. That's twenty-five hundred dollars, isn't it? You can take the quarter-section you've wanted so long, next to this one. You can get all the machinery you need. And"—she gave a little, happy, mirthful laugh—"you can get some cows! I've learned to do so many things, I guess I can learn to milk, if you'll teach me and be very, very patient about it. Anyway, it's yours to do what you like with. Now, will you ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... heartily; and after some mirthful chat, we resolved upon leaving the valley as soon as we could do so with ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... is—that is, it isn't a lecture or an oratorical effort; it is something sui generis; something reserved for our day and generation, which it would never have done for our forefathers to have known, or they would have been too mirthful to have attended to the business of preparing the world for our coming; and something which will provoke so much laughter in our time, that the echo of the laughs will reverberate along the halls of futurity, and seriously affect the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... impatience as he waited, week after week, for the advent of the long-looked-for avenger. With the characteristic superstition of the times, he constrained his daughter to promise that, at the period of birth, during the most painful moments of her trial, she would sing a mirthful and triumphant song, that her child might possess a ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... were buying stocks in a bull market. They resembled each other marvelously, these men who differed so greatly in cast of features and complexion and age. Life to all of them was full of joy. The very ticker sounded mirthful; its clicking told of golden jokes. And Gilmartin and the other customers laughed heartily at the mildest of stories without even waiting for the point of the joke. At times their fingers clutched the air happily, as if they actually felt the good money the ticker was presenting to them. ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... and face mirthful of appreciation, and Prince Akuli, with another apprehensive glance at the old wahine and her half-made hala lei, returned to his tale of the bones of ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... lunch they had all gone out to the stones and the wall. Half a dozen sunburnt children were putting one of the partially overturned megaliths to a happy use by clambering to the top of it and sliding on their little behinds down its smooth and sloping side amidst much mirthful squealing. ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... She liked, with the usual propensity of her sex, occasionally to vex the man she loved, and assert her sway over so good-looking a fellow. He, in his turn, played off the widow very well; and one unfailing source of mirthful reconciliation on Tom's part, whenever the widow was angry, and that he wanted to bring her back to good humour, was to steal behind her chair, and coaxingly putting his head over her fair shoulder, to pat her gently on her peachy cheek, and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... profit and himself, Self-banished from society, prefer Such squalid sloth to honourable toil. Yet even these, though feigning sickness oft They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores, Can change their whine into a mirthful note When safe occasion offers, and with dance, And music of the bladder and the bag, Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy The houseless rovers of the ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect—bright, slender, and graceful,—of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet every thing had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... homeward march, jostled them as they went along. With dumb, dull curiousness, she looked into one after another of the limitless stream of faces, and she fancied she saw in them every emotion but pity. The faces were gay, were anxious, were sorrowful, were mirthful, were lined with thought, or were merely flat and expressionless, but not one was turned toward her in compassion. The expressions of the faces might be various, but an underlying callousness was discoverable beneath every mask. The people seemed removed ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... novelist, was one of the first names on the lengthening list of those who were to be admitted at all sorts of hours. Reed Opdyke accepted him in mirthful gratitude to the Providence which had arranged so equable a quid pro quo. Prather was manifestly out for copy, despite his constant disavowals of what he termed an envious slander hatched by Philistine minds. Reed Opdyke's sense of humour was still sufficiently acute to assure him that there ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... watched his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself. She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed. It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely mirthful expression of my ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... tangles of some mighty Naerea's hair. Undines and satyrs, cupids and merry fauns, may spring laughing from under the artist's hand, but it is from the unyielding marble that these slender children of his mirthful hours are carved. It was not in her infancy that Rome produced her Juvenal. Martial and Plautus caricatured the passions of humanity after Carthage had been destroyed and Julius Caesar had made of his tomb a city ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... as they liked. They uttered loud protests; a few of them began to talk in whispers. Little exclamations every now and then burst forth from the place where the wall was overshadowed with aristolochia. One would imagine that it was a mirthful cackling of hens; and he developed his theory with that self-complacency which is generated by the consciousness of success. A man-servant brought into the arbour a tray laden with ices. The gentlemen drew close together and began to ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... to be extravagant. The unbiassed inquirer into the affairs of ancient Egypt must discover ultimately, and perhaps to his regret, that the dwellers on the Nile were a "gay and frivolous people," festive, light-hearted, and mirthful, "fond of dancing and red wine," and pledged to all that is brilliant in life. There are very many people, naturally, who hold to those views which their forefathers held before them, and picture the Egyptians as a sombre, gloomy people; replete with thoughts of Death and of the more melancholy ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the garden, —some lambing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling. The wine had brought out, as it were, each man's inmost character. Some were loud and quarrelsome, others sentimental and whining; some, whom we had hitherto thought dull, most mirthful; some, whom we had ever regarded as discreet and taciturn, most garrulous and uproarious. I remember that in the midst of our most clamorous gayety my eye fell upon the foreign cavalier, Signor Zicci, whose conversation had so enchanted us all, and I felt a certain chill come over me to perceive ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... say 'excuse me' when you left the table," said Mitchell, whom the law of gravitation had suddenly raised to a pinnacle from which he viewed his friends with mirthful scorn; "and if you've hurt yourself it must be a judgment on you for leaving the table without saying 'excuse me.' Here's to Clover, who has a judgment and a dish of peas served on him at the same time for leaving the table without saying ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... stories is the inculcation, in a quiet, simple way, of the principles of good nature, kindness, and integrity among children. They consist of the usual pathetic and mirthful incidents that constitute boy ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... was still mirthful. 'I'm not sure that he didn't call poor little Homie something worse than that. It's the purest jealousy on his part—nothing to make a ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... I tell you! He is a man entirely different from other men. They say that he was mirthful before his blood became seared in ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... life, the "Lettres de mon Moulin." After the war, Daudet reappeared in Paris, greatly strengthened and ripened by his hermit-existence in the heart of Provence. He produced one masterpiece after another. He had studied with laughter and joy the mirthful side of southern exaggeration, and he created a figure in which its peculiar qualities should be displayed, as it were, in excelsis. This study resulted, in 1872, in "The Prodigious Feats of Tartarin of Tarascon," ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... smile, half mirthful, half melancholy, passed over their neighbor's lips; but his peace of mind seemed undisturbed, and he remained buried in his book Till they reached ——-, at dusk. As he returned it, he offered his services in procuring a carriage or attending to luggage; ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... though, and none of the sashes was raised. If it hadn't been for the way things had been comin' criss-cross at me, I suppose I'd wiped off my collar and gone along, lettin' it pass as a joke; but I wa'n't feelin' very mirthful just then. I'm ready to follow up anything in the trouble line; so I steps into the area, drops my baggage, shins up over the side of the front steps, and flattens myself against the off side of the ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of food laid before them, and of all they had heard said, they remembered nothing; neither of that, nor of any sorrow whatsoever. There they remained fourscore years, unconscious of having ever spent a time more joyous and mirthful. And they were not more weary than when first they came, neither did they, any of them, know the time they had been there. It was not more irksome for them to have the head with them, than if Bran the Blessed had been with them himself. And because of these ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... feet remained now between the refreshment parlor and this party of mirthful victims. If Pepsy's red hair had been short enough it would have stood on end; as it was her fingers tingled with mingled appeal and confidence in ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the college presently became the focus of the Ritualistic and Romanizing movement. Thus, up to twenty-three, Keble's life had been that of a sort of acolyte, and though not ascetic (for his nature appears to have been always genial and mirthful), entirely clerical in its environments and its aspirations. At twenty-three he took orders, and put round his neck, with the white tie of Anglican priesthood, the Thirty-nine Articles, the whole contents of the Anglican Prayer Book and all the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... distilled perpetually that soft dewiness characteristic of the perfect complexion of young children or of goddesses. And like a goddess the queen appeared that moment,—an untidy, earth-chained goddess, mirthful, voluptuous. ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the long alleys of wonderful trees where many a clinging vine trailed masses of riotous color, it was pleasant to hear mirthful voices ringing freely after the dull day's repression, or echoing back more faintly from adventurous wanderers in the farther shrubberies. This garden of delights which Janus had made for his bride, environing this palace of Potamia, was ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... was it that possessed the deacon's heart and home, on this bright New Year's morn, I wonder? Surely, some angel of fun and frolic had flown into the deacon's house with the opening of the year and was filling it, and the hearts within it, too, with mirthful moods. For the deacon laughed and joked as he buttered his cakes and fired off his funny sayings at Miranda, as he had never joked and laughed before, until Miranda herself smiled and giggled; yes, actually giggled, behind the coffee-urn, at his merry squibs, as if the little imp ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... from an imaginary Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600, first sets forth the orthodox view of the case; then the poem tells us "what the Jews really said." Nothing more audaciously or more sardonically mirthful was ever written than the first part of this ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... to make the sport more mirthful, that they should shut their eyes and pass around him in a circle. Again he beat his drum and ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... evening' sweeps the plain, And sheds its perfume in the dell, But on its wings are sounds of pain, Sad tones that drown the echo's swell; And yet we hear a mirthful call, Fair pleasure smiles with beaming glance, Gay music sounds in the joyous hall: Oh God! is this a time ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... gossiped, slept, read, and revelled, till another passenger got in, when propriety clothed them as with a garment, and the mirthful ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... himself never chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But there were many days when his sense of deprivation made him sad, subdued, and quiet. When, in these moods, he came into Mercy's presence, and found her radiant, buoyant, mirthful even, he wondered; and sometimes he questioned. He strove to find out the secret of her joy. There seemed to him no ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of PETER IZOD, who was thirty-five years clerk of this parish, and always proved himself a pious and mirthful man. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... heroes, chieftains, and monarchs, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis XVIII. le Desire—are among the taille-douces specified in the imprints. Madame did me the honour of shewing me some of her choicest treasures, as her husband was from home. Up stairs was a parcel of mirthful boys and girls, with painting brushes in their hands, and saucers of various colours before them. Upon enquiry, I found that they received four sous per dozen, for colouring; but I will not take upon me to say that they were over or under paid—of so equivocal a character ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... stared at Sahwah in amazement, and Sahwah fancied she saw a great terror leap up in her eyes. Veronica looked at her a moment, the expression of astonishment frozen on her face, and then to Sahwah's great bewilderment she laughed aloud, a genuine, mirthful, unforced, ringing laugh. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... melancholy in his large brown eyes was all the more striking from contrast with the music, the lighted room, and an amusement suggesting gayety. Pale, utterly unresponsive to the brilliant and mirthful scenes, he glided ghost-like here and there, and before very long seated his companion by the elderly woman whose urgency had led to his automaton-like performance. Then with a slight bow he passed through a window near and disappeared. The two lades spoke together for a few moments and seemed ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... measure, and it was only on hearing the ring of the mirthful laugh that he exclaimed, 'Mr. Edgar This is an alteration. You will find the young ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon nature. This is not the praise of a poet; whose office rather is to represent known phenomena in a new connexion or medium. In L'Allegro and Il Penseroso the poetical magician invests the commonest scenes of a country life with the hues, first of a mirthful, then of a pensive mind.[21] Pastoral poetry is a description of rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil, and much more Pope and others, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... sunshine had passed o'er him. The few snowy locks which lingered yet around his brow were soft and silky as a child's—time and sorrow had traced him but a gentle path, 'twould seem by the light which yet beamed in his calm blue eye and placid smile, the expression was far different from mirthful happiness, but breathed of holy peace and spirit pure, tempered with love and kindness for all—living in the past dreams of youth, he loved the present, when it recalled their sweet memories in brighter beauty from the tomb of faded years, and then it seemed ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... serious, but Helmsley was listening to the conversation, and she caught the mirthful glance of his eyes. So she laughed, and taking Mrs. Twitt by the shoulders, kissed her heartily ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Miss Bell's souvenir of her shattered ideal? That's the best thing in the letter —that's really supreme!" and Kendal, still broadly mirthful, stretched out his hand to take it again; ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... the battles which would have to be fought. Young staff-officers were there, explaining carefully how hard worked they were and how often they went under shell-fire. The fighting officers, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, jeered at them, laughed hugely at the latest story of mirthful horror, arranged rendezvous at the Godebert restaurant, where they would see the beautiful Marguerite (until she transferred to la cathedrale in the same street) and our checks which Charlie cashed at a discount, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... a very fearful and tyrannical monster before he was quite done with it. No doubt the first black face that grinned on the Virginian shore, a couple of centuries ago, seemed more an object of mirth than of terror—and it certainly gave promise of profit. But he is a man of mirthful disposition who sees anything to laugh at in the same black face, grown older and broader and much less comical, on the shore of the same Virginia to-day. The white race and the black—the sharp profile and the broad lip—the springing instep and the protuberant heel—have ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... confused and erroneous statement. The two faculties are distinct, Wit being intellectual and occupying a small space adjacent to Causality or Reason, while Mirthfulness, or the sentiment of the ludicrous, is just above it, and should properly be called Humor. The mirthful or playful faculty is in the posterior region adjacent to Approbativeness, and may be quite conspicuous when there is neither wit nor humor in the mirth. Imitation, Mirth or Humor, and Wit follow each other in a line. The so-called organ of Wit (Gall) or Mirthfulness (Spurzheim) ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... smiled, but it was not a mirthful smile. His former interest had become quickened by this helpless and pathetic look, and mentally he strengthened ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... wrong word to use in connection with it. So far had he got,—not a great distance,—and then came to what he at length discovered was a wall, and apparently impenetrable. He was not even allowed to look over it. Cynthia was kind, engaging; even mirthful, at times, save when he approached it; and he became convinced that a certain sorrow lay in the forbidden ground. The nearest he had come to it was when he mentioned again, by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... It was not a mirthful laugh. He rarely gave way to mirth. Purpose had too profound ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. There was a tremor of the bow, and I heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... laugh was more insulting than mirthful. 'That's why she comes and hugs you on the lawn of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... beautification about the room struck a chord of compassion in the flapper's breast, which was, however, at once compounded with humour in her mind. And then she could control herself no longer, and was forced to smile,—one of those broad mirthful smiles that are parlously near a laugh. Feeling, however, that her mood was one of derision, she turned quickly aside,—but not soon enough successfully to evade her mother's ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... suddenly the man burst into laughter, a happy, mirthful laugh, spontaneous and irresistible. Ganimard felt his hair stand on end in horror and surprise. It was that laugh, that infernal laugh ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... you, Barnstable, but distrust my abilities to fill such a station," she said, laughing, though the color that again crossed her youthful features was like the glow of a summer's sunset, and even her mirthful eyes seemed to reflect their tints. "Do not mistake me, saucy one. If I have done more than my sex will warrant, remember it was through a holy motive, and if I have more than a woman's enterprise, it ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... well-spiced elder wine, the mummers would enter, decked out in ribands and strange dresses, execute their strange antics, and perform their curious play. So the wintry days passed until Twelfth Night, with its pleasing associations and mirthful customs. ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... lounging about the waggon. Old Ike fixes a new flint in his rifle, and Redwood, of a more mirthful disposition, is occasionally cracking a joke with ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... connections were rich in character, one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of continuity in the narrative, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... thus reprove when it was necessary and glanced across the table expecting to see a very demure little miss. Instead, Marion and her little brother exchanged glances and then simultaneously a grin overspread their faces, while Marion said in a mirthful tone: ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... money, and involves a matter of taste. Some people like character; I prefer money. If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the "per contra." I find it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy my "rage;" or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far from seeking revenge, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... gumption in this thick old head I should have slipped a damper cake in my pocket. But who was going to think of eating at a time like that? Perhaps Ned would," he added, with a soft chuckle; and the idea was so mirthful that he shook a little, but only ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... its possessor happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair. This insouciant, light-tempered, gay, and thoughtless disposition, conducted Rene, free from all the passions which embitter life, and often shorten it, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic losses, which often affect those who are proof against mere reverses of fortune, made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful old monarch. Most of his children had died young; Rene took it not to heart. His daughter Margaret's marriage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... laughed again. It was the happiest joy-song in the world. A mirthful goddess might have trilled it—a laugh like sunshine and flowers and chasing cloud ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... do it?" he was saying. "Kin I do it?" Then he would stop his walk and his cogitations would bloom into a mirthful chuckle. Something very pleasant ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... himself go and enjoy himself over Gilbert Gurney's river adventure. If the revival of the Whartons' book were to serve no other purpose than to send some laughter loving souls to the heady well-spring of Theodore Hook's merriment, it would have done the mirthful a good turn and deserved well ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... in weeks Perkins was faintly mirthful. The narrowness of his escape had made him hysterical, and he actually indulged in the luxury of ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... have grown very dull. I think my wits are not so bright as they used to be. At home, I used to be reckoned one of the pleasantest of us: the boys used to laugh when I said things: but not even the most hysterically mirthful could find food for laughter in my ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty's Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina's mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... postured, she gesticulated. She lowered her voice to inaudibility, she raised it to shrieks and wails. She did everything which she had been taught, and she had been taught a great deal. Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder listened and got data for future lectures, with her mirthful ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... cried, displaying ivory teeth, her eyes cast upwards, hands upraised in gentle, mirthful protest. "La, sir! But I ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... George Goring and Sir John Finett will play, and in which I have been solicited to take the drolling part of Jem Tospot—nay, laugh not, Dick, Sherborne says I shall play it to the life—as well as to find some mirthful dame to enact the companion part of Doll Wango. I have spoken with two or three on the subject, and fancy one of them will oblige me. There is another matter on which I am engaged. I am to present a petition to his Majesty from a great number ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a young lady of the better class, who was just old enough to feel all the proprieties of her situation, while she was still sufficiently youthful to enjoy all the fun. As she came near me, it seemed as if I knew her; but it was not until I heard her sweet, mirthful voice, that I recollected the pretty little thing in whose behalf I had taken a round with the butcher's boy, on the Bowery road, near six years before. As her party came quite near the spot where I stood, what was only conjecture at first, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... we have unwarily intruded upon your majesty at a moment of mirthful retirement, be pleased to say when you will indulge a stranger with an audience on those affairs of weight which have brought ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... so mirthful a company," apologised the new arrival, bowing. "But knowing of the unstinted hospitality of Greenwood, I made bold, Mrs. Meredith, to tell a friend that we could scarce fail of a welcome." Brereton turned to say, "This way, Harry, after thou'st disposed ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... lowered his voice and articulated something so mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... She had to change everything. Theresa provided her with what was necessary, and I prevailed upon her to forget her dignity and partake of a rustic collation, with which she seemed highly satisfied. It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so mirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return. She did not however put this project into execution until the next year: but, alas! the delay was not favorable to me ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... "I enjoy this dimness. One seems more inclined to talk, though I think I have heard a most excellent reason educed for such a course;" and a mirthful twinkle ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... they hear so well. And they never forget. These four"—with a sweep of my cigarette—"have long memories of things, some sweet, some stern, some full of tears, and some again so mirthful that they split their panelled sides with merriment whenever ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... hours of tedious travelling—in the flaming glow of day, or in the still, cool watches of the night, he had with him a recollection—Lilith Ormskirk's face haunted him. Those eyes seemed to follow him—sweet, serious; or again mirthful, flashing from out their dark fringe of lashes, but ever entrancing, ever inviting. Her whole personality, in fact, seemed to pervade his mind, warring for sole possession, to the exclusion of all other thought, all other consideration. Into the conflict his own mind entered with a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... not a mirthful sound. "How funny you are! Strangers don't quarrel. They've nothing to ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... ridicule in things To lead the tenor of my devious lay; Through every swift occasion, which the hand Of Laughter points at, when the mirthful sting Distends her sallying nerves and chokes her tongue; What were it but to count each crystal drop Which Morning's dewy fingers on the blooms Of May distil? Suffice it to have said, [Endnote FF] Where'er the ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... dead," said Susan primly. But so irresistible was the well of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made the statement mirthful. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... little, mirthful ripple. Then, with sudden seriousness, "But, Jim, we shouldn't be jesting. We've got to get ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... piece, on being revived (when I[2] first appeared in the part of Bayes) at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden in the year 1739, was, in that one season (continued to 1740) played upwards of forty nights, to great audiences, with continued mirthful applause. As this is a truth, I give it to the candid; and let the relation take its chance, though it should not be thought by some (who may not abound in good nature) that I only mean by this, to pay due regard to the merit of the piece, though it speaks ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... touch, in the mirthful experience of that night, that passed endurance. Pit and circles were one scene of such convulsive merriment that it was impossible to proceed in the performance; and the extinguishment of the footlights, the fall of the curtain, and the throwing wide of the doors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... lengthened very perceptibly as he heard the small amount of his legacy, and he glared savagely at Mrs. Pinkerton, who showed a mirthful face at ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still, But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burthen ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... And he who us'd to lead the country-round, Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes grief-drown'd. Ambo. Let's cheer him up. Sil. Behold him weeping-ripe. Mir. Ah! Amaryllis, farewell mirth and pipe; Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play To these smooth lawns my mirthful roundelay. Dear Amaryllis! Mon. Hark! Sil. Mark! Mir. This earth grew sweet Where, Amaryllis, thou didst set thy feet. Ambo. Poor pitied youth! Mir. And here the breath of kine And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine. This flock of ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... here, by your neighbour Acres, was somewhat damped by his dwelling much on the high spirits you had enjoyed in Devonshire—on your mirth—your singing—dancing, and I know not what! For such is my temper, Julia, that I should regard every mirthful moment in your absence as a treason to constancy. The mutual tear that steals down the cheek of parting lovers is a compact, that no smile shall live ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... and of Miss Twinkleton, the schoolmistress, are not in the author's best vein of humour. "The Billickin," on the other hand, the lodging-house keeper, is "in very gracious fooling:" her unlooked-for sallies in skirmishes with Miss Twinkleton are rich in mirthful surprises. Mr. Grewgious may be caricatured too much, but not out of reason; and Dickens, always good at boys, presents a gamin, in Deputy, who is in not unpleasant contrast with the pathetic Jo of Bleak House. ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... No mirthful response lit either face. She read condemnation in both pairs of eyes. For the first time in her life she felt daunted, humiliated. She knew nothing more beyond the fact that in deliberate coquetry she had pitted brother against brother, and that something cruel ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... on a par, since, though she had three weeks' start of him, the complaint having been unmitigated in her, had left much more permanent-looking traces. Those two chose to keep each other up to the most mirthful nonsense-pitch, and yet I am sure none of us felt so light of spirit as we must have appeared, though, perhaps, the being on the edge of such a great shadow made ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the support," returned Arthur, with a short laugh, "if she had consented we could have managed to live, I fancy; and had we failed, we'd have called on our relations." Here Arthur cast a meaning, but half-mirthful glance at Guly, who, seeing that even then he was half intoxicated, shrunk away, not ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... chair and laughed softly. His lips, when they parted from his white teeth, resolved themselves into lines which at that moment seemed to Peter Ruff more menacing than mirthful. Sogrange was, in many ways, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... time to-morrow, if all goes well, we'll be safe in Piziquid, cherie!" he cried joyously to the child, who responded with a mirthful stream of babble. Pierre's conversation she regarded as a ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... apple-toddy, a very rich and spicy compound; after which we had some glees and negro melodies, in which Mr. Thaxter sang a noble bass, and Mrs. Thaxter sang like a bird, and Mr. Weiss sang, I suppose, tenor, and the brother took some other part, and all were very mirthful and jolly. At about ten o'clock Mr. Titcomb and myself took leave, and emerging into the open air, out of that room of song, and pretty youthfulness of woman, and gay young men, there was the sky, and the three-quarters waning moon, and the old ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... measure of the municipal band as it marched with the funeral procession. He cursed the sounds from the bottom of his heart. They reminded him of that infamous apparition, of all he most ardently desired to forget. His laughter died down. Wanly he looked at his mirthful pagans, the embodiment of joys. Yes; these were his distractions, his playmates, his elixir of life, his antidote against the only disease, the only sin, crime, vice which he recognized on earth—a vice none the less, because it happened ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... my work a thing that it is mirthful to record. A youth named Wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... animosity against the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella that, after all, he had never known any associate so agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, said that the conversation of Addison was at once the most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined; that it was Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent judge of serious conversation, said that when Addison was at his ease, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... before now, our enemies—yours and mine, my lord—have met with sudden and mysterious death. Men stared, but they ended by calling it a dispensation of Providence." He broke off to laugh with silent, hateful laughter, as mirthful as ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... nature of laughter to communicate itself that when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom the common people call, in their picturesque language, wet blankets, spoil-sports, or kill-joys, are not necessarily ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... thanks to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her eyes, like her mother's, were large, black, and shaded by long lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not, thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost blond, her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother's, was flanked by charming dimples. The ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... flutes)—The "Sarranian" or "Tyrian" pipes, or flutes, are supposed to have been of a quick and mirthful tone; Madame Dacier has consequently with much justice suggested that the representation being on the occasion of a funeral, the title has not come down to us in a complete form, and that it was performed with the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... the hall asleep: beside him his wife, Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life; And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse; And a boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house. Unwary, with open hands, he slept in the midst of his folk, And dreamed ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... branching alleys, or to find the aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness; it is rather a preserve. And, fitly enough, the centre of the maze is not a hermit's cavern. In the midst, a little mirthful town lies sunlit, humming with the business of pleasure; and the palace, breathing distinction and peopled by historic names, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that to them was gorgeous. Tea was brought in, and two other ladies joined the party. They made both sailors feel quite at ease, and before very long they were talking with as great freedom as though they had been in the forecastle. The ladies were made very mirthful, and laughed merrily at many of the quaint yarns that were told them, which were for the most part personal. Jimmy told them of his domestic bliss and the form of petticoat government that controlled him in a charmingly simple ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... of mirthful eyes upon her for a moment, and noting with wonder the pale, anxious face and quivering lip of her sister, seemed ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... mirthful silence. True to Reddy's prediction Hippy's round face was suddenly thrust into view. Reddy leaped toward him. There was a horrified, "Oh, dreadful!" from Hippy, and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... staring at the face of the Healer, stood for an instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped and exclaimed, "Well, I'm eternally—!" and broke off with a low laugh, which was at first mirthful, and then became ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... afford, Where meet the mirthful, social throng, As, gathered round the festive board, Our healths she pledges ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a careless, fearless girl, And made her answer plain; Outspoken she to earl or churl, Kind-hearted in the main, But somewhat heedless with her tongue, And apt at causing pain; A mirthful maiden she and young, Most fair for bliss or bane. "O, long ago I told you so, I tell you so to-day: Go you your way, and let me go Just ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... rolled high in the heaven and changed, as if into silvery feathers, the mimosa and acacia twigs. In the dense jungles resounded here and there the shrill and, at the same time, mockingly mirthful laugh of the hyenas, which in that gory region found far too many corpses. From time to time the detachment conducting the caravan encountered other patrols and exchanged with them the agreed countersign. They came to the hills on the river banks and through a long pass reached the Nile. The ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... her and waft her hence to France.— And now what rests but that we spend the time With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows, Such as befits the pleasure of the court? Sound drums and trumpets!—farewell sour annoy! For here, I ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition] |
