"Laugh at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life have rendered us excitable, we must train ourselves to conquering this trait; yet if life has engendered in us equanimity, we should so rouse ourselves by our own efforts that the soul may be capable of responding to the impressions it receives. The man who cannot laugh at anything, has just as little control over his laughter as one who is perpetually giving way ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... there were two or three Christian Scientists who met at the home of one of their number to read the Lesson-Sermon. Meeting one of them one day, I asked if unbelievers could come to their meetings. She said that they could if they wanted to. I went, expecting them to do something that I could laugh at when telling my friends about it. How surprised I was to find out that they didn't do anything but read the Bible and another book which they called Science and Health. I still thought it all foolishness, but resolved ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... my reply would be. "Withdraw," said I, "and have you laugh at me and tell your friends that I acted the poltroon? Really, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... imagine himself a minister when he had no prospect of getting into Parliament. Other people experience these day-dreaming vanities, but they do not talk or write about them. Boswell did; and we all laugh at him, especially the fools among us: the wiser part add some of the love that belongs to the common kinship of humanity wherever it puts off the mask, the love of which we feel {53} something even for that gross old "bourgeois" Samuel Pepys, just because he laid out his ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... among all the strange, queer inmates of that Tenement house as fearlessly as a little queen. But, oh, the one that is a chorus-singer! If you could see her! So lean, so sallow, so airy and full of manner. But I will never laugh at another elderly chorus-singer again in my life, she is grand, she's heroic," and the pretty Kindergartner threaded gay worsteds into needles with a vigor which ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... certain time! 'N' that wasn't so fur back, shorely,—only two years. Why dang your fool heart, I've laid out there in them hills myself and fit off the Navvies—'n' I didn't see nothin' much to laugh at, now I'm tellin' yuh! Time I ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... not disposed to laugh at Young's words; rather was I disposed to weep over them. For they brought freshly and strongly to my mind the fact that I was responsible for alluring him, by the hope of acquiring great riches quickly, into this accursed valley, where in a little while he would be ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... his own hand deals out to himself. But we have talked too much already. I ask you to remember your oath, for I have told you this so that you will not bring ridicule upon me by a womanish appeal to my own men, who would but laugh at you in any case and think me a dotard in allowing women overmuch to say in the camp. Get you back to your women, for we move camp instantly. Even if I were to relent, as you term it, the time is past, for Wilhelm is either dangling from the walls of Castle Schonburg or he is pardoned, and all that ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... collectively, but not individually: that must not be thought about for a moment." She had not a notion what the queer expression on Mr. Drummond's face meant, and he did not know himself; but he had the strongest desire to laugh at this. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... flowers in fields and know their names, I must be free! I say what one can laugh at, and you are good and don't. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in his eyes. "It's something else that I've come to say—something quite different. I've come to tell you that you are all the world to me, that I love you with all there is of me, that I have always loved you. Yes, you'll laugh at me. You'll think me mad. But if I don't take this chance of telling you, I'll never have another. And even if it makes no difference at all to you, I'm ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... cheese; and once, when Dick was like to be drowned, Tom had jumped into the pond with his clothes on, and saved his life, when he was just sinking: the remembrance of all this made his heart heavy. He said nothing; but, as he trotted, barefoot, after the asses, he heard his father and brothers laugh at having outwitted the godly ones; and he grieved to think how poor Tom would suffer for his wickedness, yet fear kept him silent: they called him sulky dog, and lashed the asses ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... you flush up as red as a rosebud! Come—it's all right. I'm not going to laugh at you. Do you know she is a very virtuous woman? Believe it or not, as you like. You think she and Totski—not a bit of it, not a bit of it! Not for ever so ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... forget yon fair-faced fool, leaning now, see you, so delightedly on his arm, and fancying eternity in the hollow vows of love; let him live to wrong and abandon her by forgetfulness, though even in the grave; to laugh at his boyish dreams,—to sully her memory in the arms of harlots! Oh, if the dead can suffer, let him live, that she may feel beyond the grave his inconstancy and his fall. Methinks that that thought will comfort me if Vincent be ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upon music machines as has been lavished upon the telephone and the steam engine, we would have had mechanical orchestras long ago. Mechanical pianos are already here. Piano-players, bound to put some value on the tortures of Czerny, affect to laugh at all such contrivances, but that is no more than a pale phosphorescence of an outraged wille zur macht. Setting aside half a dozen—perhaps a dozen—great masters of a moribund craft, who will say that the average mechanical piano is not as competent ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... spoke, and as you say, and as I meant, not brilliantly. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, is a very favourite maxim of mine. Perhaps, as this is one of my great undertakings, it is more owing to you, than to any other motive. I know you will laugh at me, for saying so, but I really believe it. I said a few words, too, upon your Morpeth business, which encouraged me perhaps to do afterwards, what I did with ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... think he was that sort of an idiot! He talked quite all right to me. No wonder Papa laughed. It's much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There's nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They're as rich as What's- his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter—but he would be no use on a sheep-run; you've got to be in the saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the night. John Smith looked the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... busy working at something or other this morning. I didn't get on to it, and meant to ask him, but forgot all about it. I saw him fasten a piece of rope around him and enclose a tree out there. It made me laugh at the time, and only that Bluff called me just then I would have joshed him about trying to play Indian, and tying himself face ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... am not afraid to tell you. I must go; life here is torture to me; it is torture to see you, to hear you speak, to worship you with a heart full of fire, and yet to know that the sun is not farther from me than you, to know that if I laid my life at your feet you would only laugh at me and think me mad. It is torture so great that exile and ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... add greatly to the effect," and Nat, in his boyish way, continued to joke and tease, until Tavia was obliged to laugh at her own fears. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... than follows her order; that he has an absolute power over his own actions; and that he is altogether self-determined. They then proceed to attribute the cause of human weakness and changeableness, not to the common power of Nature, but to some vice of human nature, which they therefore bewail, laugh at, mock, or, as is more generally the case, detest; whilst he who knows how to revile most eloquently or subtilely the weakness of the mind is looked upon ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... four months, made the tour of Spain. He had very frequently been hemmed in by forces three times the number of his own, in places whence escape appeared impossible, but he had always battled his enemies, whom he seemed to laugh at. The most absurd accounts of victories gained over him were continually issuing from the press at Seville; amongst others, it was stated that his army had been utterly defeated, himself killed, and that twelve ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... respect to an ole man or an ole woman,' says he; 'an' never kick up a row with nobody; an' when you see a row startin', you strike in an' squash it, for blessed be the peacemakers; an' never you git drunk, nor yet laugh at a drunk man; an' never take your Maker's name in vain, or by (sheol) He'll make it hot for you.' That was my father's style with me. Same with my sister. He used to lay a bit of a buggy-trace on the table, after supper: 'There, Molly,' says he; ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... himself was interested only in the larger themes. The lesser people of the play, the early rehearsing of involved business, was shaped by his subordinates. The smaller faults and the mannerisms of the actor did not trouble him, provided the main thought and feeling were there. He would merely laugh at a suggestion to straighten out the legs and walk, to lengthen the drawl, or to heighten the cockney accent of a prominent member ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... know all about it, Captain Faircloth," Damaris said in conclusion, essaying to laugh at her own discomfiture. "And I am very tired, so if you will be kind enough to row me across the ferry, I shall be grateful to you, and glad, please, to go home ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... I confess, rather inclined to laugh at myself and my audience, for I stepped forth, wand in hand, with all the gravity of a real Sorcerer. Still, I did not give way, for I was here not merely to amuse a curious and kind public, I must produce a startling effect ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... I will come after them." He had already made one ineffectual attempt to take New Elfsborg that cost him dear. In Goeteborg they knew the strength of his fleet and laughed at his threat. But it was never safe to laugh at Tordenskjold. The first dark night he stole in with ten armed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort, and spiked their guns before a shot was fired. The rising moon saw his men in possession of the ships lying at anchor. ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... something. He was embarrassed by the fact that he was master over everybody there, and that if he were to start to work himself, no one would believe that he was working merely to satisfy his desire, and not to spur them on in their work; to set them an example. And then, the peasants might laugh at him, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... to their external advantages, our moral standard is as false as the drawing upon a Chinese plate. We have no true moral perspective. Our ideas of right and wrong are confused and imperfect, and in danger of becoming corrupt. We laugh at the stupidity of the poor Chinaman in his attempts after beauty in art, while in morals we are quite as stupid as he. Believing ourselves wise, we are fools. It is very hard to escape being unduly influenced by the opinions of society; ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... excellent Yugoslavs who will have no more fear of what they call "Serb hegemony" than have the Scots of that of England. As for the present generation of Croats and Serbs, if they were Occidentals they would be old enough to laugh at each others' peculiarities and each others' statesmen. But South-Eastern Europe is still under the morning clouds, and they are inclined to take seriously what we in the West make fun of. However, there is one man whose ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... It is a shame that all these pretty things—and you know they are really good and valuable—shouldn't show what they are. But I suppose everybody here accepts the fact that this man simply buys them because they are valuable, and nobody interferes, and is content to humor him, laugh at him, and feel superior. It don't strike me as quite fair, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... lilac-coloured dress. She was very kind; once when we were walking through the town I began to talk to her. I believe she understood, because she was very, very young—only about eighteen—and hadn't begun to laugh at me yet. She had a dimple in one cheek, very charming—but some man from London came to stay at the Castle and she was engaged to him. Then there were Katherine and Millie Trenchard, of whom we were talking. Katherine never laughed at me; she was serious and helped her mother ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... have no aristocracy, we are cursed with a plutarchy. Let me tell you about that. A man who carries a million dollars on his back carries a load.... When I speak against the Royal Family I do not condescend to speak of the creatures who form the Royal Family—persons are so insignificant.... We laugh at your ideas in this petty little country having anything to say to the free and independent citizens who walk through Canada, Australia, and America. You know how to get rid of a Monarchy. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... banners and the barges and the music, I declare sometimes I think that heaven itself can be no better, God forgive me! Ah! but I wish her Grace 'd take a husband; there are many that want her; and then we could laugh at them all. There's so many against her Grace now who'd be for her if she had a son of her own. There's Duke Charles whose picture hangs in her bedroom, they say; and Lord Robert Dudley—there's a handsome spark, my ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... ban rich men's boys, Who ban having planty toys, Vearing nicest clo'es in town, Lak dis little Buster Brown. Don't yu care! Ven dey grow up, And ban shining at pink tea, Drenking tea from china cup, Yu skol give dem loud tee-hee. Yu skol laugh at dis har mob Ven dey come to yu for yob. Barefoot boy, yu ant got cent; But ay tal yu dis, some day Yu got chance for president Ef dese woters com yure vay. Yust keep vistling all day long, Yust keep senging little song, And ef yu skol alvays love Some one who ban ...
— The Norsk Nightingale - Being the Lyrics of a "Lumberyack" • William F. Kirk
... "Oh, please don't laugh at me!"—for it suddenly struck the girl that he was laughing, perhaps in reproof, and that she had spoken too freely. "I ought not to have asked that; I was not thinking—I was ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... habit, though it was strictly a dishonest proceeding, proved to him not only a real source of pleasure, in hearing his praises from the lips of those he loved most, but it also served him as a fair critical school. Whenever he found his parents laugh at a sentence which he deemed very pathetic, he set himself at once to correct it to a simpler style; whenever they asked him for an explanation of a word, or line, he noted it down as ill-expressed, or ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... capable of being a good friend, while Lord Chesterfield and Carteret were dishonest, imprudent creatures, whose principles practically told all their acquaintance, "If you do not behave to me like knaves, I shall either distrust you as hypocrites or laugh at ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... her enter her door; it is my good neighbor, Miss—; she is one of the excellent of the earth, but she is poor, old and forsaken by all but the few who seek for those whom others forget. She has no beauty, no celebrity; there is no eclat in noticing her; there are those who will even laugh at him for ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... definite influence on the symptomatic expression of the neurosis, placing at its disposal the whole sum of intestinal disturbances. Considering the erogenous significance of the anal zone which has been retained at least in transformation, one should not laugh at the hemorrhoidal influences to which the old medical literature attached so much weight in ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... Sabella wanted to laugh at the comical spectacle presented by the dripping, coatless, hatless, bare-footed, and generally woe-begone boy; but pitying ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... likewise a monstrous silver bumper and three beakers of the ordinary size. It was long before the bumper was filled to the rim, and then it required two men to raise it to the table. In the mean time another page placed the three beakers before the knight, who could not suppress a sarcastic laugh at the huge bumper which the page, taking in his strong arms, placed to his lips. As the knight emptied the last beaker the cup-bearer turned down the bumper. Two needles and a bundle of silk lay on the table. It wanted a few moments of the half hour, and the Brunswicker ran toward the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... always renewed her courage. Once in a while she felt quite sure that she could see the nose of some wild beast poking out in front of her, but when she came nearer it proved to be the joint in a tree trunk, or some strange fungus which had grown on a low branch. Then she would laugh at her own fear and go on. One of the wonderful things about the mysterious little thread which she carried in her hand was, that it seemed to open a path behind it, so that one could easily follow in her footsteps ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... book, the officer who administered it incautiously exclaimed—"Your right hand, my lord!" His lordship, with a good-humoured smile, mildly reminded him that he had no right hand. The surrounding company, however, were less merciful; and not only indulged an immediate hearty laugh at his expence, but sarcastically fastened on him, for ever after, the unfortunate phrase—"Your right hand, my lord!" In the mean time, all the troops quartered in the town paraded before the inn, with their regimental band; paying every ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... laugh at the further end of the building where Varnhagen's private office, partitioned off with glass and boards from the rest of the store, opened on the street. It was a laugh the old man knew well, for he hopped behind a big pile of bales like a boy playing hide-and-seek, and held his breath ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... would not be understood to impose gravity or too great a reserve on the fair sex. Let them laugh at a feather; but let them declare openly, that it is a feather which occasions their mirth. I must confess, that laughter becomes the young, the gay, and the handsome: but a whisper is unbecoming at all ages, and in both sexes: nor ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... superfluous rain; in cases of hail, a fine wire-netting is spread over the same; against drought the artificial rain system affords all the protection needed. The vine-dresser of such a vineyard is his own weather-maker, and he can laugh at all the dangers from the incalculable whims and caprices of indifferent and cruel Nature,—dangers that ever threaten with ruin the fruit of the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Campbell met him at the boat with a loaded rifle and declared his determination to kill him, at the same time asking him whether he had a rifle and expressing a desire to give him a fair chance. Harrison affected to laugh at the whole matter and invited Campbell into his boat to take a drink with him. Campbell accepted the invitation, but, while he was in the act of drinking, Harrison seized his rifle, fired it off, and laid Campbell dead by striking him with the barrel ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... with a better appetite than she had yet done since she was a prisoner, while Mary Seyton deplored in a low tone and with all possible respect this fatal gift of repartee that Mary had received, and which, with her beauty, was one of the causes of all her misfortunes; but the queen did nothing but laugh at all her observations, saying she was curious to see the figure her good hostess would cut ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with his "peculiar silent laugh." He was obliged to laugh silently for fear of attracting the unfavourable notice of the Mingo, who might be hiding in the nearest bush. The red men found it simpler and safer not to laugh at all. No, it is not from the natives that the people of the States get their peculiar fun. As to the German emigrants—But why pursue the subject? The Abbe Bouhours told the bitter truth about German wit, though, in new conditions and on a fresh ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... time, the little meadow people crept out from their hiding places and formed a great circle around the old dead stump. With old Mother Nature there they felt sure that no harm could come to them. Then they began to laugh at the funny sight of fierce old Mr. Owl hopping from one foot to the other on top of the old dead stump. It was the first laugh on the Green Meadows for a ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... was holding in her hands. A nervous trembling passed over her. Then steps were heard on the stairs and presently a young, manly voice. And, as if this voice had some magic power, the girl shook off her emotion, started to run, and hid herself in the oratory. Both father and aunt had to laugh at this, and even Ibarra heard the closing of ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... He may break my heart, but it shall not be dishonored and trodden in the dust. The prince shall cease to love me, but I will not be despised by him. He shall not think me a miserable coquette, despise, and laugh at me. Now, sire, you can crush me in your anger. I have said what I had to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... you made was like that! But I knew You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone: Else I'ld have said out ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... declamation, that caused even some of the beaten warriors to laugh at their leader, the barge came gently alongside the strand, well out of sight of Bacharach. Each of the dozen swore the terrible, unbreakable oath of the Three Kings to be ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... years has she beaten you," Li Faa giggled. "How my father used to laugh at Yap Ten Shin! Like you, Yap Ten Shin had been born in China, and had brought the China customs with him. His old father was for ever beating him with a stick. He loved his father. But his father beat him harder ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... point with my pole, like a ski-jumping Norwegian, risking my neck at every bound. Then we coursed along the valley, the habitant's eyes still on the trees, and once he stopped to emit a gurgling laugh at a badly hacked trunk, beneath which was a snowed-up sap trough; but I could not divine whether Paul's mirth were over a prospect of sugaring-off in the maple-woods, or at some foolish habitant who had tapped the maple too early. How often had I known my guide to exhaust ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... to admire the country, for our progress occupied nearly the whole day. We now laugh at our slow-moving forefathers, but is not the time coming when our thirty miles an hour will be laughed at as much as their five? when our passage from Calais to Dover will be made by the turn of a winch, and Paris will be within the penny-post delivery? when the balloon will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... hand. He stood like a statue in bronze or stone,— Not a muscle moved, and the braves looked on. He turned to the chieftain,—"I scorn the fire,— Ten feathers I wear of the great Wanmde; Then grant me, Wakwa, my heart's desire; Let the sunlight shine in my lonely tee. [19] I laugh at red death and I laugh at red fire; Brave Red Cloud is only afraid of fear; But Wiwst is fair to his heart and dear; Then grant ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... I should remain," he said; "the girls flout and laugh at my 'sea-saw ways,' as they call them; and though Barbara is a trim craft, well-built and rigged too, yet her quiet smile is worse to me than the grinning of the others. I'll stay nowhere to be both frightened and scouted: ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... as if Ella had a political salon and distributed lettres de cachet! I'm glad she approves of Ashford; but if you think my wife makes my appointments for me—" He broke off with a laugh at the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... offence," said the Idiot. "I've read so much of yours that was purely humorous that I believe I'd laugh at a dirge if you should write one; but I really thought your lines in the Observer were a burlesque. You had the same thought that Rossetti expresses in ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... said a little angrily. He did not like being made fun of, for he lacked the capacity to laugh at himself. "Just how much of a fool do you think ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... the court were rude enough to laugh at this very candid confession; but the judge himself failed to ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... are accustomed to cry 'Land ho!' but not 'Water ho!' and you do not see it," cried the niece, laughing, as girls will laugh at ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... except such as he made for himself. There was a State law which compelled him to join a commando and to accompany it to the front, or in default of that law to pay a small fine. As soon as he was "on commando," as he called it, he became his own master and could laugh at Mr. Atkins across the way who was obliged to be constantly attending to various camp duties when not actively engaged. No general, no act of Volksraad could compel him to do any duty if he felt uninclined ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... who gives me food, Or shares his home with me, I owe a debt of gratitude, And I must loyal be. I may not laugh at him, or say Of him a word unkind; His friendliness I must repay, And to his faults ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... allegiance to the lord of the manor. The majority are Foresters, and wear green sashes, and carry banners like to the pictorial pocket-handkerchiefs of Brobdingnag. The music gives over, and my host addresses them from between the roses of his porch, and they laugh at his genial jokes with the unanimity of the footlights. There are tiny tots and old women in the background, and yonder is the Village Beauty—a ripe maid, i' faith, and a comely. There are other girls in her train; but, oddsbobs! what have they done with their ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... when I was at work on the despised Oronte, who caught one's idea on the wing, and was in the glow of feeling myself go very straight, they came in, the Major and his wife, with their society laugh about nothing (there was less and less to laugh at); came in like country-callers—they always reminded me of that—who have walked across the park after church and are presently persuaded to stay to luncheon. Luncheon was over, but they could stay to tea—I knew they wanted it. The ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... the old man; "we can but try." So, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the Ass together and with the help of a pole endeavored to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge near the entrance to the town. This entertaining sight brought the people in crowds to laugh at it, till the Ass, not liking the noise nor the strange handling that he was subject to, broke the cords that bound him and, tumbling off the pole, fell into the river. Upon this, the old man, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that by endeavoring ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of course they don't. Not one in a thousand. I wish they did. That's what's the matter. But they laugh at it—laugh at it!"... His voice cracked into shrill falsetto.... "Laugh at hell-fire.... Is Sunday the day, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... indicted for this criminal attempt at the next assizes, the court would regard it as a case of lunacy (or delirium tremens) rather than of treason. England owes much of her grandeur to the depth of the aristocratic element in her social composition. I am not the man to laugh at it. But sometimes it expressed itself in extravagant shapes. The course taken with the infatuated outsiders, in the particular attempt which I have noticed, was, that the waiter, beckoning them away from the privileged salle-a-manger, sang out, "This way, my good men;" and then enticed ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... "Don't laugh at me, dear friend, but I am coming to London for a week or two, to my little house in Charles Street. I don't know exactly when. You will find time to come and ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was his brother-in-law, and he himself the barber. I hoped I had not taken a liberty. 'Oh, no; poor Malays were proud when noble English persons showed such respect to their religion. The young Prince had done so too, and Allah would not forget to protect him. He also did not laugh at their prayers, praise be to God!' I had already heard that Prince Alfred is quite the darling of the Malays. He insisted on accepting their fete, which the Capetown people had snubbed. I have a friendship with ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... there was about those words to anger me. It must have been their boastful tone, the sarcasm that underlay the velvet utterance, which stung like salt in a fresh wound. I felt that from the summit of his own success he durst laugh at me; and my ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... am an ass," cried the barrister, "and I don't care a halfpenny! I know I'm an ass, and you may laugh at me to your heart's delight." And as Julia's lips opened with a smile, he once more dropped into music. "There's the Land of Cherry Isle!" he sang, courting her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... affectation of new titles and distinctive badges of honour; nay, the very deifying of such as were the most bloody tyrants. These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is need of more than one Democritus to laugh at them. And yet hence only have been occasioned those memorable achievements of heroes, that have so much employed the pens of many ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... come to our house to live with us, then she begin to ask me why I did not worship the ancestors with her on the marriage day; and I begin with my lesson to her in simple things, telling her why I don't worship those things any more. When I make a prayer to God before I go to bed she laugh at me because I pray to nothing—no God that I can see. But I told her that she must bow her head too when I pray, and must keep still. So, after this, she pay more attention to what I tell her about this great God that I have ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... fool (let me yield to the truth) and a madman likewise: only declare this, with what distemper of mind you think me afflicted. Hear, then: in the first place you build; that is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you less ridiculous than him? What—is it fitting that, in every thing Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... this," continued Beaufort: "enjoy the hours as they come; borrow not in advance, but spend the hour you have; shake the past from the shoulders like a worn-out cloak; laugh at and with your enemies; and be sure you have ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... poorer tradesmen, forced to beggary or banishment. "Wisdom crieth in the streets: Because I have called on ye; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsels, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the city, my enterprise before me. The early light lay rich upon the verdant turf. It shone so rosy on the slender boles of the trees, and there was so merry a whispering among the leaves, that in my heart I could not but laugh at people who feared meeting anything to terrify them in a spot so delicious. 'I shall soon pass through the forest, and as speedily return,' I said to myself, in the overflow of joyous feeling, and ere I was well aware, I had entered deep among ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... make fun of it, and pretend to trace out the connection! Once, at Christmas, I presented him with a family tree, and a peerage-book. The latter was something I had written up myself, and such nonsense, but it made us fun for many weeks. We could laugh at anything in those days. Duncan really had no more idea of inheriting a title and estate at that time than I, a farm-bred girl, had myself. He was a thorough American, who loved his country, and because his ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... "I shan't object to your presence there. Now, I'll run away while you pose, for I MIGHT make you laugh at the wrong time." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... the skin, while a great deal of water entered the fore-compartment of the yawl through the hole for the chain-cable at that time left open. {85} The surprising suddenness of this drenching was so absurd that one could only laugh at it, nor was there time to don my waterproof suit—the sou'wester from Norway ten years ago, the oilskin coat (better than macintosh) from Denmark last year, and ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... heard, with a look of hate, and stifled his laughter as best he could; for it is not good to laugh at him ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... allowableness of wit and humor. Assuming or conceding that the jocose elements or capacities of human nature need apology and defence, very nice distinctions have been drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... desired by the gents, on the ground that I vos the one vot betrayed 'em. I know that you will consider it strange that such an idea should exist, and any one wid half a knowledge of my character vould laugh at the thought; but I think that the best vay to save my life vould be to step out vile I am hable, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... rest between the acts," continued Arethusa, "because they must have been tired, after dancing so hard, and the curtain must have gone up so quick they didn't have time to change. They must be awfully embarrassed to come out before us like that. I think it's mean to laugh at them. I wouldn't laugh for ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... I am stretched beneath the pines, When the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... also not to rant too much, even in thy service; and though we do set up for prophets and the like, let us not forget occasionally to laugh at our very august selves. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... word," the Squire said, and his wife did not trouble herself to protest; Reverdy opened his mouth in a soundless laugh at the Squire's humor, and then filled it with bacon and corn-pone, and ducked his head in silence over his ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... the Duke's turn to be confused. After having made the King and all the Court laugh at this adventure, he became himself the laughing-stock of everybody. He bore the affair as well as he could; carried away the Abbess and her baggage; and, as the scandal was public, made her send in her resignation and hide herself in another convent, where she ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... toward Rinkitink and Bilbil perpetually and nothing could have saved them from being cut to pieces except the protecting power of the Pink Pearl. As it was, not a knife touched them and even Bilbil gave a gruff laugh at the failure of ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... present occasion to laugh at me," he said. "Eleanor, what made you first willing to quit England ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Costantina!—Ah, signorina, is she not beautiful? Ze mos' beautiful in all ze world? But ver' unkind signorina. Yes, she laugh at me; she smile at ozzer men, at soldiers wif uniforms." He sighed profoundly. "But I love her just ze same, always from ze first moment I see her. It was washday, signorina, by ze lac. I climb over ze wall and talk wif her, but she make fun of me—ver' unkind. I go away ver' sad. ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... the black flag, eh?" said Mr. Adiesen to Tom and Harry, who looked a little ashamed, but joined in the laugh at ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... he's Napoleon Bonaparte, an' calls me his man, and wears a plug hat and sits as straight as a ramrod, and bows to the people when they laugh at him,' said Tommy. 'Some of 'em get stuck on the cart, and it's a fight to get 'em out of it. I tell ye, I'm sick o' the job. The sight o' that ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... me Dad was really dead— that he would never get off the bed where he lay so cold and white and peaceful,—that he would never speak to me again, I said she was wrong—that it could not be. I told her he would wake presently and laugh at us all for being so foolish as to think him dead. Even Hero, our mastiff, does not believe it, for he has stayed all morning by the bedside and no one dare touch him to take him away. And just now Priscilla has been with me, crying very much—and she ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to laugh; to smile; — de, to laugh at; dar que — (con), to ridicule, make sport (of), make a laughingstock (of); y se le rieron en sus barbas, and they laughed in his face; reirse en la nariz, to laugh in one's face; romper a —, to ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... in the great points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts; soldiers reveling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... he could be like that, he would be. But he wants two qualities—he can't laugh, and he can't cry. Father could only laugh internally. He used to get crimson, and swallow hard. That was his way. Jimmy can't laugh at all, that's the mischief of it. And crying too. Father could cry rivers. One of the best things I remember of him was his crying before Mother. 'Damn it all, Meg, I missed him!' he said, choking with grief. Mother knew exactly what to say. 'You'll get ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... involuntary and uncalculating impulses of the one hurried him away with a force and vehemence with which he could not grapple; while he could trifle with the conventional and superficial modifications of mere sentiment at will, laugh at or admire, put them on or off like a masquerade-dress, make much or little of them, indulge them for a longer or a shorter time, as he pleased; and because while they amused his fancy and exercised his ingenuity, they never once disturbed his ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... are not stealing, burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries they have dressed up some of the statues, broken some, and stolen nothing but queer dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate the French; hate the Germans if you like. The French laugh at us a little and call out Goddam in the streets; but to-day, in civil war, when they might have put a bullet through our heads, I never was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she exclaimed, stopping short, and then bursting into a loud laugh at the comical appearance which Dora presented; for Eugenia had cut close to the head, leaving the hair so uneven that shingling seemed the only alternative, and to this poor Dora finally submitted. When at last the performance was ended, and she glanced at herself in the mirror, she burst into a ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... be hundreds and hundreds of miles along which we have staggered and stumbled. I thought you were a cool card. Mister BALFOUR, and did know your way about. Sir, But what I should like to know at present is, when we are like to get out, Sir. How LABBY will laugh at the Labyrinth-maker, who gets lost in his own Great Maze, Sir! Don't say, Sir, pray, that you've lost your way,—you, whom people so cosset and praise Sir. You won't be hurried, and you can't be flurried, and you're always as cool as a cucumber. Can a little 'un like me, your own child, don't you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... anybody—everybody. Praise only the very young, the very old and the halt; abuse all able-bodied adults, and laugh at any one in whom you see anything amusing," ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... Lincoln, when any one preached who was remarkable for his piety, desirous of withdrawing the king's attention from truths he did not wish to have his majesty reminded of, would in the sermon-time entertain the king with a merry tale, which the king would laugh at, and tell those near him, that he could not hear the preacher for the old—bishop; prefixing an epithet explicit of the character of these merry tales. Kennet has preserved for us the "rank relation," as he calls it; not, he adds, but "we ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the same. I can't tell you here the romance of my life. I couldn't do it in surroundings like these. We will go on to your rooms presently, and then I will make a clean breast of the whole thing to you. You may be disposed to laugh at me for a sentimentalist, but I should like to stay here a little longer, if it is only now and again to hear a word or two from her lips. If you will push those flowers across between me and the light I shall be quite secure from observation. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... very often," snapped the other contemptuously. "Bah, what are threats! I laugh at them—as I always will." Then, with a quick change of front, his voice a sudden snarl: "Well, we have talked enough. You have your choice. The stones or—eh? And ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... so successfully upon our friend the Buck occasioned a general laugh at his expense, a circumstance which filled, him with serious mortification, if not with actual resentment, for it so happened, that one of his great foibles was such a morbid sensibility to ridicule ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... darling; not exactly. Only I thought it would be fun to go out and look at the people in the Row—and laugh at them. Besides, I always drive down Piccadilly and Bond Street when I have a new hat, to find out whether it suits me. It's such ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... a virtue of my indignation, and swore that no man should with impunity either asperse the character of Melinda, or turn my behaviour into ridicule. He replied in a dry manner, that I would find it a Herculean task to chastise everybody who should laugh at my expense; and, as for the character of Melinda, he did not see how it could suffer by what was laid to her charge; for that cheating at cards, far from being reckoned a blemish among people of fashion, was looked upon as an ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... me with a droll smile on his round merry face, which at its gravest was a thing to laugh at. "Let him whip who is scared," he said, with roguish impudence. "Or if there is to be whipping, my lord, whip ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... about it. And so you buried them? Ah, me! ah, me! And George did chief mourner. I suppose he blubbered freely; he always could blubber freely when he liked. I remember how he used to take folks in as a lad, and then laugh at them; that's why they called him 'Crocodile' at school. Well, he's my master now, and I'm his very humble servant; perhaps one day it will be the other way up again. What, must you go? If you knew how fearfully ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... kissed his finger-tips: "Drink deep the beaker, and so farewell!" Then slowly the poisoned draught she sips (How they laugh at her meek dismay!). ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... superficially—Germany is ugly; that Munich is a nightmare, Heidelberg a disappointment (in spite of its charming castle) and even Nueremberg not a joy for ever. But comparisons are odious, and if Munich is ugly Verona is beautiful enough. You may laugh at my logic, but will probably assent to my meaning. I carried away from Verona a precious mental picture upon which I cast an introspective glance whenever between Botzen and Strassburg the oppression of external circumstance became painful. It was a lovely August afternoon ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Gentiles cried out, "Isti magi et malefici." "What new delusion," says the heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has brought in these sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this chief sorcerer mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (carmine) to laugh at punishment!" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... you heartless vagabond!" I exclaimed, giving a loose to my indignation; "you won't get rid of me so easily as you think. I will live and laugh at you yet, were it only ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... 'What is there to laugh at?' said Mr. Dusautoy, putting on a look between merriment and simplicity. 'What else could I have done? I should have done the same ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery, and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... right has Arnold, what right has any dictionary, to define the word Irreverence for me? What their ideals are is nothing to me. So long as I reverence my own ideals my whole duty is done, and I commit no profanation if I laugh at theirs. I may scoff at other people's ideals as much as I want to. It is my right and my privilege. No man has any right to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... proceeded. "All of you in Shed B are bound to know. And I want to ask you where is the common sense of keeping up this farce, and maintaining this cock-and-bull story between friends. Come, come, my good fellow, own yourself beaten, and laugh at it yourself." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you. But don't scream so loud!" said Dino quietly, putting down the scissors again. "I only wanted to do you a favor. If my two sisters, Agnes and Nika, could see you, they would laugh at you; they would not like the way you pasted on ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... recollection struck through even her stupid intellect with a vivid glow of beauty and of grace. Little Janey, timid, helpless, clinging to Hugh as her only friend: that was the sharp thought, the bitter thought, that drove into the glazed eyes a fierce light of pain. You laugh at it? Are pain and jealousy less savage realities down here in this place I am taking you to than in your own house or your own heart,—your heart, which they clutch at sometimes? The note is the same, I fancy, be the octave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... obvious exaggerations of Dickens arising from the exuberance of his fancy interfere with the sense of reality. A truth is not less true because it is in large print. We recognize creatures who are prodigiously like ourselves, and we laugh at the difference in scale. Did not all Lilliput laugh over the discovery of Gulliver? How they rambled over the vast expanse of countenance, recognizing each feature—lips, cheek, nose, chin, brow. "How very odd," they would ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... and publishers with whom I had contracts pestered me with demands for explanations. But how could I explain to them, when I was unable to explain to myself, or when there was nobody, not even Roscoe, to explain to me? The newspapers began to laugh at me, and to publish rhymes anent the Snark's departure with refrains like, "Not yet, but soon." And Charmian cheered me up by reminding me of the bow, and I went to a banker and borrowed five thousand more. There was one recompense ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... be so infatuated that the most dignified Court that ever sat in Boston would become an object of universal merriment and ridicule, that should presume to arrest and cause to be indicted any man for free speaking in old Faneuil Hall. Merriment, I say, for who would not laugh at a philosopher who would set snares for the stars, and fix his net to catch the sun, and regulate their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the other in the North, changes the knave to an ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... out of that war dance, Joel," said old Mr. King, leaning back in his big chair to laugh at him, "perhaps you'll have the goodness to tell me whom you are talking about ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... the negotiation. This you well know; and yet your Directory will not strike him off the list. In a word it is not only an inconceivable, but an extremely stupid piece of business; for he has all my secrets; he knows my ultimatum, and could by a single word realize a handsome fortune, and laugh at your obstinacy. Ask M. de Gallo ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... my friend, That stretched before us lie, There'll be enough of tears, my friend, To dim the brightest eye. So let them wait, and laugh at fate, While Youth's sweet moments shine, - Till memory gleams with golden dreams Of Love and ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... at the maestro's indignation. Now that she had given her faith, refusing to allow anything to stand between her and Max, she was so supremely happy that she felt she could afford to laugh at such relatively small obstacles as would be raised by ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... this book were told me at Calcutta and Simla by two Ayahs, Dunkni and Muniya, and by Karim, a Khidmatgar. The last five were told Mother by Muniya. At first the servants would only tell their stories to me, because I was a child and would not laugh at them, but afterwards the Ayahs lost their shyness and told almost all their stories over again to Mother when they were passing through the press. Karim would never tell his to her or before her. The stories were all told in Hindustani, which is ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... her large blue eyes—eyes swimming ever like the autumn lotus in clear water—these two eyes may be fixed upon my face, but they say nothing. I lose my senses gazing on them; I cannot explain better. You will laugh at this history of my mental stability; but if I could place you in front of those eyes, I should see what your firmness is worth. Up to this time I have been unable to determine what those eyes are like. I have not seen them look twice the ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... all astonishment, James and I; but stop, if you can, when Mr. Desgranges drives you. At the end of three days, here we are with the cask, he harnessed and drawing it, I behind, pushing; we were ashamed at crossing the village, as if we were doing something wrong; it seemed as if everybody would laugh at us. But Mr. Desgranges was there ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... life when I could have treated it with more interesting vivacity, and might have been at least amusing if I could not be instructive. Even the present fashion of the world seems to be ill suited for studies of this fantastic nature; and the most ordinary mechanic has learning sufficient to laugh at the figments which in former times were believed by persons far advanced in the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... so oft and so fondly indulged, are ye, indeed, after all, but fantastical and airy visions? Is love indeed a delusion, or am I marked out from men alone to be exempted from its delicious bondage? It must be a delusion. All laugh at it, all jest about it, all agree in stigmatising it the vanity of vanities. And does my experience contradict this harsh but common fame? Alas! what have I seen or known to give the lie to this ill report? No one, nothing. Some women I have met more beautiful, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... be too strongly emphasized. The more marked the control of the ball the greater will be the success, for no matter how many wonderful curves he may be able to get, unless he has perfect command he will never be a winning pitcher; seasoned batsmen will only laugh at his curves and go to first on balls. To acquire thorough control requires long and patient practice. A pitcher should always pitch over something laid down to represent a plate, and if possible get a batter to stand and hit against him. Let him practice ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... through the bars. And that is what you are doing. To be in love with his wife and pay court to her in Paris, when he is a hundred leagues from you, is all very well, but to install yourself in his house, within reach of his clutches! that is not love, it is sheer madness. This is nothing to laugh at. I am sure that this will end in some horrible tragedy. You heard him speak of killing his wife and her lover just now, as if it were a very slight matter. Very well; I know him; he will do as he says without flinching. These ruddy-faced people ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... you'll tell me what there is to laugh at about him?" said Wag, rather basely, I thought; so, as Slim put his finger to his lip and ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... end to Mr Easy's adventures," said the captain. "I could laugh at the duel, for after all it is nothing—and he would have been let off with a severe reprimand. But the foolish boys have set off in a speronare to Sicily, and how the devil are we to get ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... ever deviated from it without losing not only the respect of the thinking, but even the confidence of the unwise. Chatterton's earliest idea seems to have been how to deceive; and, were it possible to laugh at youthful fraud, there would be something irresistibly ludicrous in the lad bewildering the old pewterer, Burgum. Imagine the fair-haired rosy boy, the brightness of his extraordinary eyes increased by the covert mischief which urged him forward—fancy ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... from terrestrial things, too much occupied with immortality. Here in England the variety of the weather affords a special incitement to discussion. It is like a fellow-creature or a race-meeting; the sporting element is added, and you never know what a single day may bring forth. Shallow wits may laugh at such talk, but neither the publishers' lists nor the Cowes Regatta, neither the Veto nor the Insurance Act can compare for a moment with the question whether it will rain this week. Why, then, should we not talk about rain, and leave plays and books ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... like happy children, they had romped and laughed together out there beyond the black spruce. Often he had caught her up in his strong arms and carried her, tired and hungry but gloriously happy, back to their little home in the clearing, where she would sit and laugh at him as ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... all laugh at the dear old men and make fun of their having a debut party for themselves, but I think it is just too sweet of them. Oh, oh, oh, if I only had ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... is the Prince's jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders; none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit but in his villany; for he both pleaseth men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him: I am sure he is in the fleet; I would ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... remarked to one of the officers of his escort, "How delightful to be driven through this in a carriage, while you will have the pleasure of following on horseback! You will be wet and dirty, whilst I smoke my pipe and laugh at ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... talked before both men and women so highly of thy manliness, why wouldst thou desist from the fight? If thou shouldst return home without recapturing the kine, brave men and even women, when they meet together, will laugh at thee (in derision). As regards myself, I cannot return to the city without having rescued the kine, applauded as I have been so highly by the Sairindhri in respect of my skill in driving cars. It is for those praises by the Sairindhri ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... remaining days out of the pittance that he might hope to collect from this vast estate for services that ought to be beyond price. It looks as though hatred and jealousy were combined in a desperate effort to crush the counsel for the plaintiff. The counsel for the plaintiff can afford to laugh at their animosity toward himself, but he cannot help his indignation at their ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... effeminate and childish air; his assiduities about every woman of beauty or fashion; his confidence in his own merit, and his presumption in his own power, wear such a curious contrast with his trembling hands, running eyes, and enervated person, that I have frequently been ready to laugh at him in his face, had not indignation silenced all other feeling. A light-coloured wig covers a bald head; his cheeks and eyelids are painted, and his teeth false; and I have seen a woman faint away from the effect of his breath, notwithstanding ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... ready to join in a laugh at his own expense, and used to tell the following story with intense enjoyment: "In the days when I used to be 'on the circuit' I was accosted in the cars by a stranger who said, 'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.' 'How is that?' ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... returned; he was well received and they brought him greetings from the family at Interlaken. Babette did not talk much, she had grown silent; but her eyes spoke and that was quite enough for Rudy. The miller who generally liked to carry on the conversation—for he was accustomed to have every one laugh at his witty sayings and puns—was he not the rich miller?—seemed now to prefer to listen. Rudy recounted to him his hunting expeditions; described the difficulties, the dangers and the privations of the chamois hunter when on the lofty mountain peak; how often he must climb over ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... 1) [laugh at my wife] The two plots are excellently connected, and the transition very artfully ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... amusing story was told him on his travels there—a story too good to leave unrepeated, though he personally had no part in it—unless the laugh at the end can be called a part. During one of those terrible storms which periodically sweep the shores of Formosa, an American vessel was wrecked and her crew eaten by the aborigines. The nearest American Consul thereupon journeyed inland to the ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... immorality and costume of the period, comprising thirty figures; and another, in allusion to the marriage of the Princess Mary with her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, on the 22nd of July, 1816. To those who have asserted that George Cruikshank "never pandered to sensuality ... or raised a laugh at the expense of decency," that "satire in his hands never degenerated into savagery or scurrility," I would commend the serious consideration of the three ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt |
