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More "Mirth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning's; Cain, self-sacrificed On crime's first altar: legends wise as truth, And truth in legends deep embalmed and spiced; The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth, The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ. And higher than sorrow and mirth The heavenly song of earth Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed To still the storms of time And sin's contentious clime With peace renewed of life reparadised: Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars; Goddess of gods, our ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and costliness. The rarest dishes and the costliest wines in every variety were put before us. I need not say that in such a party everything was conducted with the highest decorum. No noise, no boisterous mirth, no loud talking, but a quiet cheerfulness and perfect ease characterized the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... does not often happen, except a short time during incubation; they either appear in pairs or in families; but even this last appearance is as alarming to our grandmothers. The following distich shows what each forbodes:—'One sorrow, two mirth, three a wedding, four death.' This bird, indeed, appears to have taken the same place with us, as an omen of evil, that the owl had amongst the ancients. The nurse is often heard to declare that she has lost all ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... evening mass in the church of St. Peter at Tabaria. The Greek priests of Nazareth visit their chapel of Mount Tabor on the festival of the Virgin, on which occasion several thousand pilgrims repair to the mountain, where they pass the night under tents with their families, in mirth and feasting. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... time they entered Tiverton Street, the vestry was full of chattering groups. Heman was the last to arrive. He made a long job of covering the horse, inside the shed, resolved that nothing should tempt him to face the general mirth at the Widder's entrance. For he could not deceive himself as to the world's amused estimate of her guardianship and his submission. He had even withdrawn from the School Board, where he had once been proud to figure, because, entering the schoolroom one day at recess, he ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... At this instant an irate bumble-bee darted in, and Ella, in a spasmodic effort of self-defence, threw the spoon at it, and both went flying out of the window. The girl sat down half-crying, half-laughing in her vexation, while Aun' Sheba shook with mirth in all ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and humor. Often misunderstood, misrepresented, and misinterpreted, they are nevertheless universally admitted to be racial traits, and for an excellent reason. Other nations exhibit these qualities in their literature, and Ireland herself is rich in writers who have furnished food for mirth. But her special pre-eminence resides in the possession of what, to adapt a famous phrase, may be called an anima naturaliter jocosa. Irish wit and Irish humor are a national inheritance. They are inherent in the race as a whole, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... explosive in his manifestations of mirth, but his laughter, in reply to this statement, was almost uproarious. And the State Department was as good as its word. It immediately forgot all the elaborate "notes" and "protests" which it had been addressing to Great Britain. It ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... when sitting in their apartment, Gudrun said: "Be cheerful, Brynhild! What is it that prevents thy mirth?" Brynhild answered: "Malice drives thee to this; for thou hast a cruel heart." "Judge not so," said Gudrun. Brynhild continued: "Ask about that only which is better for thee to know; that is more befitting women of high degree. It is good, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... occurred twenty-four hours later. The Pope's remains were removed to the Chapel of Santa Maria delle Febbre by six bearers who laughed and jested at the expense of the poor corpse, which was in case to provoke the coarse mirth of the lower classes of an age which, setting no value upon human life, knew no respect for death. By virtue of the malady that had killed him, of his plethoric habit of body, and of the sweltering August heat, the corpse was decomposing ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... my hopes I will: in the mean time, with a feigned mirth 'tis fit we gild our faces; the truth is, that we may smile in earnest, when we look upon the Englishman, and think how we ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... de Penthievre Indiaman, off the part of Corunna, and carried her into Cadiz. The prize was estimated worth two hundred thousand pounds, and immediate application was made by France to the court of Spain for restitution, while the proprietors of the Anti-gallican were squandering in mirth, festivity, and riot, the imaginary wealth so easily and unexpectedly acquired. Such were the remonstrances made to his catholic majesty with respect to the illegality of the prize, which the French East India company asserted was taken within shot of a neutral port, that the Penthievre was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Virgin Mary sitting above the rose, in the centre of an intense redness of light, like another dawn. Thousands of angels were hanging buoyant around her, each having its own distinct splendour and adornment, and all were singing, and expressing heavenly mirth; and she smiled on them with such loveliness, that joy was in the eyes ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... his lips to Mother Earth, and died. The cranes screamed again, circling the wood, then in a long line sailed southward through the blue air until they might neither be heard nor seen. The robbers stared after them. They laughed, but without mirth. Then, stooping to the body of Ibycus, they would have rifled it when, hearing a sudden sound of men's voices entering the wood, they ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... I stayed two days. There was a stone floor and bare, whitewashed walls; but there was a rosebush climbing over the door, and within health and sunny temper that made mirth with a meal of herbs, and a tenderness that touched to poetry ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... works which he had undertaken at Dunkirk: and he carried the queen and the whole court along with him. While he remained on the opposite shore, the duchess of Orleans went over to England; and Charles met her at Dover, where they passed ten days together in great mirth and festivity. By her artifices and caresses, she prevailed on Charles to relinquish the most settled maxims of honor and policy, and to finish his engagements with Lewis for the destruction of Holland, as well as for the subsequent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Balaam is silent!" cried the bee-hunter, catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth, that might possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by its vociferation. "The man is as completely dumb-founded, as if a swarm of young bees had settled on the end of his tongue, and he not willing to speak, for fear of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... aback. In the case of the pig, for instance, whose last outcry had now passed into stillness, he had considered the chapter as finally closed. Whatever innocent mirth the holidays might hold in store for Edward, that particular pig, at least, would not be a contributor. And now he was given to understand that the situation had not materially changed! He would have to revise his ideas, it seemed. Sitting ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this practical jest, had subsided, 'we'll be off ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... law and a lasting peace in Asia, did not altogether forget pleasure and mirth, but, during his residence at Ephesus, gratified the cities with sports, festival triumphs, wrestling games and single combats of gladiators. And they, in requital, instituted others, called Lucullean games, in honor to him, thus manifesting their love to him, which was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Naylor, "the carpet!" Fresh moans of mirth shook the table; for having tasted the wine of laughter, all wanted as much more as they could get. When Scruff and his traces were effaced, Herr Paul took a ladle in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and seauen, so perfectly and sweetely counterfeited with liuelie motions, their vestures whisking vp and flying abroad, that the workman could not be accused of any imperfection, but that one had not a liuely voyce to expresse their mirth, and the other brinish teares to manifest their sorrow: the said daunce was in fashion of two Semicircles, with a ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... passenger comes edgin' into the Red Light. Bein' it's four o'clock in the mornin', the tenderfoot seems amazed at sech activities as faro-bank, an' high-ball, said devices bein' in full career; to say nothin' of the Dance Hall, which 'Temple of Mirth,' as Hamilton who is proprietor tharof names it, is whoopin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... not singular to find an harlequin at the court of Attila? Yet such is the origin of these buffoons. The colour of the black slaves, the strangeness of their face and manners, caused them to be sought after as excellent ministers of mirth; to complete the singularity, Zercho asks his wife at the hands of Attila, closely paralleling Harlequin ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection of the performance. His usual calm had quite broken down under it; he had laughed as if he might crumble to pieces, his face wearing an expression of absolute pain; indeed, the scene was so strange that it was mirth-provoking to those who were near. But when we returned home he questioned and pondered much upon Dickens himself. Finally he said: "I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound, and he can never be freed from it nor set ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... in the parlour, gave vent to his feelings in a wild but silent hornpipe. He cannoned against the table at last, and, subsiding into an easy-chair, crammed his handkerchief to his mouth and gave way to suppressed mirth. ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... silences into a croon; Soon Up from the marshes a fall of the plover! Out from the cover A flurry of quail! Down from the height where the slow hawks hover, The thin far ghost of a hail! And near, and near, Throbbing and tingling,— With a human cheer In the earth-song mingling,— Mirth and carousal, Wooing, espousal, Clinking of glasses And laughter of lasses— And the wind in the garden stoops down as it passes To play with the hair Of the loveliest there, And the wander-lust catches the will ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... and selfishness, in which woman herself acts a conspicuous part. Look at society—the rich eating up the poor; the poor stabbing at the rich; fashion playing in the halls of gilded sensualism; folly dancing to the tune of ignorant mirth; intemperance gloating over its roast beef, or whisky-jug, brandy punch, champagne bottle, bearing thousands upon thousands down to the grave of ignominy, sensualism, and drunkenness. Is there not a need of more vigorous virtue in woman? Is there not a call for a more active ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... "and, if you will allow me to say so, handsomer, every day. Your trip to the Eastern Shore last spring did you no end of good," and the young attorney crooked his long neck and elevated his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth in the effort to give to his sinuous body a semblance of mirth. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... there were alert girls to make this final quiet appeal for justice. They were serious, dignified. There was no jeering, no mirth on the part of the men at the novelty of this campaign—nothing to make ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... the mirth, and so joyful were all, that the followers of the prince and the maids of the princess danced together, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... Full of humour, boisterous, but delicate,—of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew,—of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of "mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the Admiral. 'And even then I was fit for any drawing-room. I should like you to tell me how many fathers, lay and clerical, go upstairs every day with a face like a lobster and cod's eyes - and are dull, upon the back of it - not even mirth for the money! No, if that's what she runs for, all I say is, let ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in Spain, and was now four and twenty; but few would have imagined him that age, so frank and free and full of thoughtless mirth and hasty impulse was his character. These last fifteen months, however, a shadow seemed to have fallen over him, not deep enough to create remark, but felt by himself. His feelings, always ardent, had been all excited, and were all concentrated, on a subject so wrapt in mystery, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... with his quick mirth and then laughed outright—the throaty, infectious laugh of his race. The coronel's eyes twinkled. And when Tim fished a damp cigarette from his shirt, nonchalantly scraped a match on his host's table, blew a cloud of smoke, and sprawled ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Labour's Lost, is the praise or apology of love spoken by Biron in blank verse. This is worthy of Marlowe for dignity and sweetness, but has also the grace of a light and radiant fancy enamoured of itself, begotten between thought and mirth, a child-god with grave lips and laughing eyes, whose inspiration is nothing akin to Marlowe's. In this as in the overture of the play and in its closing scene, but especially in the noble passage which winds up for a year the courtship of Biron and Rosaline, the spirit which informs the speech ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... shall divine the thoughts, hopes, passions and desires animating its many various and component entities? Moreover, though composed of many different souls, it may yet possess but one in common, to be swayed to mirth and anger, lifted to a reverent ecstasy or fired to bloody vengeance and merciless destruction. What is there can give any just conception ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... speaking from one side of his mouth, "you and me wouldn't jibe." He giggled with a feeble attempt at mirth. "But your sister, she's a nice little gal. And ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... hours the wine party in Blake's large ground-floor rooms was kept up with a wild, reckless mirth, in keeping with the host's temper. Blake was on his mettle. He had asked every man with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, as if he wished to face out his disaster at once to the whole world. Many of the men came feeling uncomfortable, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... clean-fingered, and beautiful style of the trade, a thousand times more provoking than the clumsy, old-fashioned, honest kind of roguery that used to be in fashion, when folk were not too large for innocent mirth, and not too wise for enjoying what was liked by their ancestors. The people cry improvement—so do we; but we cherish a theory that has no charm, in these days of absolute faith in politics and parliament for the regeneration of man, that the true good of society—that is, the improvement of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... for many days round Ragnor's Towers, Life flowed in mirth away. "Let feast and song," Sir Harold said, "have free unbounded sway; For grief and gloom have lorded here too long. Let joy now rule the day and strew her path ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... paper impressed us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... lived, would Graham Thornton's conscience be at rest. Amid all the pomp of his bridal day—at the hour when, resplendent with beauty, Helen stood by his side at the holy altar, and breathed the vows which made her his forever—amid the gay festivities which followed, and the noisy mirth which for days pervaded his home, there was ever a still, small voice which whispered to him of the great wrong he had done to Maggie Lee, who never again was ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... the water. Shubin, Insarov, and Bersenyev raced each other over the grass. They succeeded in finding a large painted boat and two boatmen, and beckoned to the ladies. The ladies stepped into the boat; Uvar Ivanovitch cautiously lowered himself into it after them. Great was the mirth while he got in and took his seat. 'Look out, master, don't drown us,' observed one of the boatmen, a snubnosed young fellow in a gay print shirt. 'Get along, you swell!' said Uvar Ivanovitch. The boat pushed off. The young men took up the oars, but Insarov was the oniy one of ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... meadows in the shade of ancient elms, the College Gate, its pillars so artfully, invitingly rounded by William of Wykeham, drew us in again. We were stirred by William Byrd's "Praise our Lord, all ye Gentiles," and taken to Oxford by Gibbons's "What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth? The music of division." Purcell recalled our gracious English landscape, and English life, "When Myra sings we seek the enchanting sound"; and Thomas Morley with "Now is the month of maying." Then there was rollicking Tom Bateson, of Dublin, with his alluring "Come follow me, fair ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass I had bought to mirror ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... hap to see. This silly swain (and silly swains Are men of meanest grace): Had yet the grace (O gracious gift!) To hap on such a face. He pity cried, and pity came And pitied so his pain, As dying would not let him die But gave him life again. For joy whereof he made such mirth As all the woods did ring; And Pan with all his swains came forth To hear the shepherd sing; But such a song sung never was, Nor shall be sung again, Of Phyllida the shepherds' queen, And Corydon the swain. Fair Phyllis is the shepherds' queen, (Was never such a queen as she,) And Corydon her only ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... ——'s match is a subject of mirth, She considered the matter full well, And wisely preferred leading one ape on earth To perhaps a whole dozen ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... And mirth grew higher, "Give me rest and shelter Beside your fire, And I will give you Your ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... who can make us laugh. Who can make us forget for a time, In the sparkling mirth of a paragraph, Or a bit of ridiculous rime, The burden of care that is carried each day, The thoughts that awaken a sigh, The sorrows that threaten to darken our way, God bless ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... is in carriage, but not in gig. My second is in false, but not in wig. My third is in laughter, but not in mirth. My fourth is in girdle, but not in girth. My fifth is in sad, but not in merry. My sixth is in pear, and also in ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... neighbour and said something in her ear, at which both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and my embarrassment increased. At that time I had as mistress a very affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose melancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must have given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... disposition. But Sulla at first used his fortune with moderation and like a citizen of a free state, and he got the reputation of being a leader who, though attached to the aristocratical party, still regarded the interests of the people; besides this, he was from his youth fond of mirth, and so soft to pity as to be easily moved to tears. It was not without reason, then, that his subsequent conduct fixed on the possession of great power the imputation that it does not let men's tempers abide by their original habits, but makes them violent, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... her pencil, or stealing away to develop some happy fancy or fresh thought on which her mind had been working for days. And how pleasant her talk. How she would dart off sometimes from the line of the gravest theme into some quaint, mirth-provoking conceit. How many odd things she had seen; of how many strange adventures she had partaken, and how graphically and charmingly she told them. With what relish she would bring forth some good thing ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... portions of life. Re-creation is making over, that is, replacing the waste of tissue, brain-power, and physical and mental energy occasioned by hard work. Temperance permits the most generous indulgence of sport, mirth, and gayety that can be claimed as needful or conducive to this essential use, but ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... drove in the winter evenings up from the town and back again. Tables were spread and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms were brightly lit, and the wine was good. And sometimes in the long moonlit nights respectable citizens would be awakened by noisy mirth in the streets of the little town, and, going to the window in their night-shirts, would see sleighs come galloping down, with a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing young people, returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where there had been feasting and dancing. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... think it is a most ridiculous practice," he said, and his heart lost none of its courage. Beverly looked at him almost pathetically. She knew that behind the curtain two young women were enjoying her discomfiture. Something told her that they were stifling their mirth with dainty ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Aillinn, who was King Lugaid's heir. Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old; Being forbid to marry on earth They blossomed to immortal mirth. ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... weep. So that Lanyard, who refused to weep in public, could merely gape in speechless and transfixed rapture. And perhaps this was fortunate; otherwise Monk must have seen that his idiotic secret was out, the sport of ribald mirth, and the situation must have been precipitated with a vengeance and an outcome impossible to predict. As it was, absorbed in his inner torment, Monk was insensible to the peril that threatened his stilted but precious dignity, which he proceeded to parade, as it were underlining ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... late to overtake a liberating idea once it gets free. Tolstoi tells of Batenkoff, the Russian nihilist, that after he was seized and confined in his cell he was heard to laugh loudly; and, when they asked him the cause of his mirth, he said that he could not fail to be amused at the absurdity of the situation. "They have caught me," he said, "and shut me up here; but my ideas are out yonder in the streets and in the fields, absolutely free. They cannot overtake them." It was already too late, twenty ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... views were no doubt serious enough; but they were overwhelmed and overpowered by a temperament which found cause for laughter in almost every person and passing event, and was the cause of innocent mirth ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... "Now Johial took unto himself a wife," etc. (Leaf turned.) "She was eighteen cubits in height and ten cubits in breadth, and was pitched within and without—" (Painful pause and sounds of subdued mirth.) "Prexy" turns ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... smiled as he spoke, an odd, slow smile which somehow held no mirth or welcome. 'I noted the family resemblance at once. A relative of yours was at one time associated ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... return there will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, When ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... There where the deep blue into sand doth fade And the long wave rolls in, a bar of jade, Sent him a portent in that sea-blue bird Swifter than light, the halcyon; and men heard The trumpet of his praise: "Shaker of Earth, Hail to thee! Now I fare to death in mirth, As to a banquet!" So when day was come Lightly arose the prince to meet his doom, And kissed Briseis where she lay abed And never more by hers might rest his head: "Farewell, my dear, farewell, my joy," said he; "Farewell to all delights ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... enormous jorum of tea, which she served out to all the guests in tin pannikins, giving to every man a fixed and ample allowance of brown sugar, without at all consulting his taste. Milk there was none. In the midst of this Jack Brien came in, and with a clamour of mirth the empty pickle jars were shown him. Jack, who was a silent man, and somewhat melancholy, merely shook his head and ate his beef. It may be presumed that he was fond of pickles, having taken so much trouble ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... us when she was three years old. She bubbled over with mirth and laughter and soothed the ache in our hearts. She filled the little niches and comers of our lives with her sweetness, and became not only ours in name, but ours also ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... third boys are in Christ's School, and are distinguished in their classes; they climb to the head, and keep their places. The other three are at their mother's knee at home, and have a strong capacity for mirth and mischief. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the mother heard a confused rush in the hall, and then, piercing through the dreamlike unreality of the moment, came the sweet, high note of a girl's voice, laughing, but with the liquid uncertainty of tears quivering through the mirth. "Oh, Marietta! Where's Mother? Aren't you all slow-pokes—not a soul to meet us at the train—where's Mother? Where's Mother? Where's—" The room swam around Mrs. Emery as she stood up looking toward the door, and the girl who came running in, her dark eyes shining ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... that moment Mr. Miller's high, cackling laugh was heard in an explosion of mirth. Mr. Carlyon had made some delightfully obvious joke for his delectation and amidst a smiling company Miss La Sarthe rose with dignity to leave the ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... be more righteous, holy and religious than his father. Noah's deed was an offense not only in appearance, but in very truth, since Ham was so far tempted by the knowledge of it that he passed judgment upon Noah, and found in such sin an occasion for mirth. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... room, without awaiting her reply, and returned to the cedar chamber, where such of the chevaliers as had not before seen Emily, began to rally him, on the discovery they had made; but Montoni did not appear disposed to bear this mirth, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out all over her head like—like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... chestnut, cracked it, and, regarding the halves, said: "This reminds me of the night Prexy lost his head"—and brought down the house with the merriest tale of all. It was so irresistibly absurd that Jeannette, helpless with her mirth, buried her face in her cobweb handkerchief, Stuart rocked upon his knees and made the welkin ring, and Mr. Jefferson laughed in a growling bass that gathered volume as the preposterousness of the situation grew upon him with ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... and almost simultaneously caught sight of the lady who had at first attracted him and then had disappeared. Their eyes met, far off as they were from each other. Pierston laughed inwardly: it was only in ticklish excitement as to whether this was to prove a true trouvaille, and with no instinct to mirth; for when under the eyes of his Jill-o'-the-Wisp he was more inclined to palpitate like a sheep ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Ye rogue—he! he!" and he shook his fist waggishly at the unconscious gray dog. "I owe ye anither grudge for this—ye've anteecipated me"—and he leant back and shook this way and that in convulsive mirth. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... irony of it rose in a wave of black mirth to his twisted lips; he, Gordon Makimmon, was exposed as an avaricious schemer with the prospects of Greenstream, with men's hopes, with their chances. While Simmons, it was plainly intimated, had labored faithfully and in vain for ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hill-top now, where the bubbling fountains are, They have taken the bucket and filled it up—yea, filled it up to the brim; But Jack he sneered at his sister Jill, and Jill she jeered at him: "What, blown already!" Jack cried out (and his was a biting mirth!) "You boast indeed of your wonderful speed—but what is the boasting worth? Now, if you can run as the antelope runs, and if you can turn like a hare, Come, race me, Jill, to the foot of the hill—and prove your ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... with Griffin beating time, stretched their mouths to the utmost and gave the Academy Howl with a vim that was deafening, drawing out the final deep growling notes to a weirdly wailing finish that sent Patricia and Elinor into gales of mirth. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... pleasure. "Mr. Lincoln told this story" (of his youth), says Leonard Swett, "as the story of a happy childhood. There was nothing sad or pinched, and nothing of want, and no allusion to want in any part of it. His own description of his youth was that of a joyous, happy boyhood. It was told with mirth and glee, and illustrated by pointed anecdote, often interrupted by ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... beside The river that he loved and glorified. Here in the Autumn of his days he came, But the dry leaves of life were all aflame With tints that brightened and were multiplied. How sweet a life was his, how sweet a death; Living to wing with mirth the weary hours, Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; Dying to leave a memory like the breath Of Summers full of sunshine and of showers, A grief and ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... country parlour, and evoked them for us. One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us so long—charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions for us in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upon generations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with her long and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes cast down,—Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'—whose method generous Macaulay ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... off, even like a shadow. He was cursed With none of the mad thoughts that were at first The poison of his quiet; but he grew To love the world and its wild laughter too, As he had known before; and wish'd again To join the very mirth he hated then! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... bright with pleasure, her cheeks flushed with health, her lips smiling in mirth, her step was so light that she seemed to dance along the sands, and her voice was so fresh and cheerful that it was impossible to believe that she cherished any other feeling on the subject of her broken marriage than one ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... ring the Christmas bells! Second child: How joyfully their jingling tells Third child: All peace and kindness on the earth, Fourth child: Ringing out, singing out, laughing with mirth! Fifth child: In every home is joy profound, Sixth child: The echo of this merry sound. Seventh child: Yet Charity must remembered be, And that is why ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... alluded to that story, by no means in the jesting way with which he formerly mentioned the vexatious incident that redounded to the honour of no one more than that of his own shrewdness, which at that time—seven years ago—was so often blended with mirth." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements; by the grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... throne, while all the heavenly hosts, divided in ten classes, having approached, stood on the ten steps according to their rank, and made obeisance to the Lord. And so they proceeded to their places in joy and mirth and boundless light, singing songs with low and gentle voices, and gloriously serving Him. They leave not nor depart day or night, standing before the face of the Lord, working His will, cherubim and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... water-weeds twined in their locks of gold The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee; Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy: Then, 'mid their mirth and laughter and affright, The sudden goddess enters, tall and white, With one long sigh for summers passed away; The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright, And through the dim wood Dian ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be enacted further still That all our people strict observe our will; Five days and a half shall men, and women, too, Attend their bus'ness and their mirth pursue, But after that no man without a fine Shall walk the streets or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest From toilsome labor and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none on peril of their lives Attempt ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... part being bearded, which is, I understand, characteristic of young America, particularly when it travels; some specimens of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada, and the Rocky Mountains, not to mention English and Scotch. Every now and then, at the most serious moments, sounds of uproarious mirth proceed from a party of Irish, who are playing antics in some corner of the ship. Considering that we are all hemmed in within the space of a few feet, and that it is the amusement of the great restless ocean to pitch us constantly into each other's arms, it is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... eyes to recall that flashing vision of youth and loveliness. He saw again the deliciously modeled face tinted to warmest pink, a figure blent of curves and gracious contours, a mouth of delicate mirth, and eyes, wide, eager, soft, and slanted quaintly at an angle to madden the heart ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... occasional hymn, rising in the silence of the air, or the distant flashing of a hundred lights, alone gave notice that the funeral procession of the Saviour had not yet halted for the night; but there was no noise, not even mirth. Everything was conducted with a sobriety befitting the event that was celebrated. That some of the curate's horses were stolen that night, is only a proof that bad men were out, and took the opportunity of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... so laughing, so merry, all these little Niponese dolls! Rather a forced mirth, it is true, studied and at times with a false ring in it; nevertheless one is ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... time his family were unanimously scarlet—his father and mother with mortification, and Margaret with the effort to control the almost irresistible mirth that the struggles and vociferations of Penrod had inspired within her. And yet her heart misgave her, for his bloodshot and tearful eyes were fixed upon her from the first and remained upon her, even when half-blinded with his agony; and their expression—as ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... exclaimed Mr. Ferret with an explosive shout, and turning to me, whilst his sharp gray eyes danced with irrepressible mirth—"Did I not tell ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... solitary and inactive, while her companions sported on the grass, without fear of incommoding themselves. The pleasure she had lately taken in viewing her fine slip and shoes was, at this moment, but a poor compensation for the mirth and merriment she ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... Kingston Bridge to Richmond; the royal coaches, each with six horses, had gone from the stables at Charing Cross to Kensington. The chief murderers assembled in high glee at Porter's lodgings. Pendergrass, who, by the King's command, appeared among them, was greeted with ferocious mirth. "Pendergrass," said Porter, "you are named one of the eight who are to do his business. I have a musquetoon for you that will carry eight balls." "Mr. Pendergrass," said King, "pray do not be afraid of smashing the glass ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revived after his collapse of mirth, and he addressed me from his gravestone. "Yes, I ought ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... that we couldn't have stood his being there but for our certainty that somewhere above us and yet with us, from his high seat among the Undying, Ford Lankester was looking on and enjoying more than we could enjoy—with a divine, immortal mirth—the rich, amazing comedy of him. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... letters which he was then constantly receiving from the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro—letters in which not only matters of science but of contemporary history were discussed. Bayard Taylor also delighted us all. Nothing could exceed, as a provocative to mirth, his recitations of sundry poems whose inspiration was inferior to their ambition. One especially brought down the house— "The Eonx of Ruby,'' by a poet who had read Poe and Browning until he ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... his head with a roar, appearing a trifle chagrined the next instant by my faint-hearted pretence of mirth. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... men laugh,' it would be the surest passport to a welcome entrance. We have here to-night one who has made millions laugh—not the loud laughter that bespeaks the vacant mind, but the laugh of intelligent mirth that helps the human heart and the human mind. I refer, of course, to Doctor Clemens. I was going to say Mark Twain, his literary title, which is a household phrase in more homes than that of any other man, and you know him best by that dear ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exact counterpart of the exterior, in the artistic arrangement and splendor of every thing. To the eye of an observer, on an ordinary occasion, every thing appeared gorgeous in the extreme; but on the occasion we describe, when preparation was making for a grand reception, all was joy, mirth, luxury, and happiness. Servants of every color and hue were seen moving through the labyrinths of the saloons and chambers of this great palace, uncovering the long-concealed splendors of valuable articles, and arranging every thing for the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... laughing voices, Fondly loved in other years, Mournfully are whispering to me That their mirth ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... tedious existence. Considered, again, merely as an orator, Mr. Whistler seems to me to stand almost alone. Indeed, among all our public speakers I know but few who can combine so felicitously as he does the mirth and malice of Puck with the style of the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... here all was joy and affability and mirth. In the mornings the ladies played and sang for us; and the evenings were generally enlivened with the merry dance. Here I bade farewell to the charming family in whose company I had passed so many happy ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... are always singularly adapted to the lecturer's purpose. Each story is mirth-provoking. The audience chuckled, shook, swayed, and roared with convulsions of laughter," says the "London Times." "He has been in the lecture field but a few years, yet he has already made a place beside such men as ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... have a passion in them in whose birth The heart receives again its beau ideal— Its Platonized embodiment of worth. Call ye them dreams! then what a mortal dearth Throws its gaunt shadow o'er our little life! Our very joy is mockery of mirth, And our quiescence agony of strife: If dreams are naught but dreams, what is our ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... friends. This could not be done at Lady D- —'s; but by his command, which I was now entitled to consider as my law, I contrived twice to visit him at his own hotel, accompanied only by Monna Paula. There was a very small party, of two ladies and two gentlemen. There was music, mirth, and dancing. I had heard of the frankness of the English nation, but I could not help thinking it bordered on license during these entertainments, and in the course of the collation which followed; but I imputed my scruples to my inexperience, and would not doubt the propriety ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "Gifted with an exquisite, a delicious sense of the ludicrous, and given to bursts of uncontrollable merriment, happy as childhood and as innocent," this is the verdict of one of his earliest biographers,—E. P. Whipple. That sunny mirth and infectious laughter was no mean element of his power over the people, we can ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, "we shall find some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for at least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the window! Are there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples been gathered to-day? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Simple!" Mrs. Oldham's mirth was high and satiric. "Isn't that like a man? Simple is the last word to be applied to Marcia's frocks, Mr. Hayden. It's a good thing, as I often tell her, that her father left us so well ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... his answer as seldom a woman has answered a man. She lifted her eyes to his, she put back her head with the tossing regal gesture he knew so well, her lips parted slowly—and she laughed. Laughed at him in a sudden mirth of leaping scorn, that was hard and cruel, that mocked and sneered at him, that took supreme toll of the supreme moment. Laughed as she saw the light quiver and die in his eyes, as the colour faded from his cheeks ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... a fit of laughter, utterly uncontrollable. Sir Lupus observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth-mist in my eyes. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... part of the wood interruptions became less frequent, and presently ceased altogether. Cuthbert found a track he knew which led straight to the trysting place with Kate; and though from time to time the travellers heard distant sounds of mirth and revelry proceeding from the right hand or the left, they did not come upon any groups of gipsies or freebooters, who were doubtless enjoying the day after their own fashion, and the two pursued their way rapidly ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... general escape from the prosaic matters which obtained from Monday to Saturday—consequently, Triffitt felt it a serious thing that attention to this Herapath business had come to interfere with his love-making and his Sunday feast of mirth and gladness. More than once he had been obliged to let Carver go alone to the usual rendezvous; he himself had been running hither and thither after chances of news which never materialized, while his sweetheart ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... language, where there are few social restraints to prevent universal intercourse, familiarizes every class of the community with the peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet for the wit and humor of the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth and hilarity, for which no people are so much distinguished as the Georgians of the middle country. At the especial period of which I now write, her humorists were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Longstreet, Bacon (the Ned Brace of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes), and many others of lesser ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... that night, and there was much mirth in the little house, such mirth as there had not been since Henri went away. The Belgians called it a bal masque, and putting them on bowed before one another and requested dances, and even flirted coyly with each other over their bits of white gauze. ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dearest Perdita, With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not The mirth o' the feast: or I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's; for I cannot be Mine own, nor anything to any, if I be not thine: to this I am most constant, Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle; Strangle such thoughts as these with ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... experience was full of feelings and acts characteristic of herself; and we may form our opinion of her disposition and cast of mind from the peculiarity of her religious emotions. In extreme youth she was fond of gayety and mirth, and spent much time in dancing. According to her own account, she had but little remorse of conscience for her thoughtless course. The fact that such amusements were sinful, as well as dangerous, had never been impressed upon her mind. She deemed them consistent with the highest state of moral and ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... carpets are spread, lights are hoisted, curtains are hung, cards of invitation sent out. The horses in gold-plated harness prance at the gate; guests come in and take their places; the flute sounds; the dancers go up and down; and with one grand whirl the wealth and the fashion and the mirth of the great town wheel ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days! Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven— From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven— From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... for the growth of numbered springs And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year, Death can have changed not aught that made it dear; Half humorous goodness, grave-eyed mirth on wings Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than quiring strings; Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering cheer; A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang By might of nature and heroic need More sweet and strong than loftiest dream or ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... cook. He is not permitted to steal from our own larder. But if he visits the next-door house by stealth and returns over the wall with a Dover sole in his jaws, we really cannot help laughing. We are a little nervous at first, and our mirth is tinged with pity at the thought of the probably elderly and dyspeptic gentleman who has had his luncheon filched away almost from under his nose. If we were quite sure that it was from No. 14, and not from No. 9 or No. 11, that the fish had been stolen, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... that Lord of day After night brings morrow, Thou dost charm away Life's long dream of sorrow. As on Mansa's water Brood the swans at rest, So thy laws sit stately On a holy breast. O, Drinker of the poison! Ah, high Delight of earth! What light is to the lotus-buds, What singing is to mirth, Art thou—art thou that slayedst Madhou and Narak grim; That ridest on the King of Birds, Making all glories dim. With eyes like open lotus-flowers, Bright in the morning rain, Freeing by one swift piteous glance The spirit from Life's pain: Of all the three Worlds Treasure! Of sin the Putter-by! ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... to mind the decent mirth of the courtiers—their discreet frankness, their natural, careless, but genteel air; in short, to acquire the Graces. Chesterfield sent letters of introduction to the best company in Venice, forwarded his own diamond shoe buckles for his son, and began to pour forth advice on the possible ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... woman at her hearth, we warm our hands at our sorrows and drop in faggots, and each thinks his own fire a sun, in presence of which all other fires should go out. I was soured to see Gavin prove this, and then I could have laughed without mirth, for had not my bitterness proved ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... spoke Amy in such mirth-provoking tones that they all laughed. Percy gazed blankly after the retreating car, and then made his way ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... articles in the Arctic Sun were grave and some were gay, but all of them were profitable, for Fred took care that they should be charged either with matter of interest or matter provocative of mirth. And, assuredly, no newspaper of similar calibre was ever looked forward to with such expectation, or read and re-read with such avidity. It was one of the expedients that lasted longest in keeping up the spirits of ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... once, with lively gesticulation. A few faces had the strained look that indicates the conscientious listener; but most of these young musicians were under the influence of a stimulant more potent than wine, which manifested itself in a nervous garrulity and a nervous mirth. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to come her anger was occasionally excited against Mary, and she, on rare occasions, yielded to ill-temper against her daughter-in-law, she would upbraid her for extravagance, or stinginess, or over-dressing, or under-dressing, or too much mirth or too much gloom, but never, never in her most uncontrolled moments did she allude to any one of the circumstances relating to Mary's flirtation with Harry Carson, or his murderer; and always when she spoke of John Barton, named him with the respect due to his conduct before the last, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... remorse tears her distracted mind, and guilt, poverty, and disease close the dreadful scene: she sinks unnoticed to oblivion. The finger of contempt may point out to some passing daughter of youthful mirth, the humble bed where lies this frail sister of mortality; and will she, in the unbounded gaiety of her heart, exult in her own unblemished fame, and triumph over the silent ashes of the dead? Oh no! has she a heart of ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... in which part of these lines were repeated was irresistibly funny. To Eurie it was explosively so; she laughed until the seat shook with mirth. To be sure, she knew nothing about modern Sunday-schools; for aught that she was certain of, they might have sung that very hymn in the First Church Sunday-school the Sabbath before; and it made not the least atom of difference ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... time. Knowing the ford well, and that it is shallow, with a firm bottom, they ride boldly on; their followers straggled out behind, these innocent of the foul conspiracy being hatched so near; still keeping up their rollicky mirth, and flinging about jeux d'esprit as the spray drops are tossed from the fetlocks of ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... proposition amazed the "help"; in fact, its absurdity convulsed them. The man laughed loudly; the cook buried her ebony face in her apron; the second girl bent double with mirth. Here was a quaint gentleman, indeed, and a great joker. But the gentleman was not joking. On the contrary, he brought this levity to an abrupt end, then, gravely, ceremoniously, he seated the trio. They sobered quickly enough at this; they became, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... by; We met again four summers after; Our parting was all sob and sigh—- Our meeting was all mirth and laughter; For in my heart's most secret cell, There had been many other lodgers; And she was not the ballroom belle, But ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... rate, was on him; and that the watch would be all the closer in the absence of his betrothed No, he did not want to dawdle away a week (off duty) at Hale Castle. Never before had he so yearned for the rough freedom of Major Seaman's shooting-quarters, the noisy mirth of those rude Homeric feasts, half dinner, half supper, so welcome after a long day's sport, with a quiet rubber, perhaps, to finish with, and a brew of punch after a recondite recipe of the Major's, which ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... claps his hands and laughs. His obstreperous mirth frightens the bird away. She perches on the plantain bower. They follow her there. Vasantaka finds a picture and shows it to the king, who gives him a golden bracelet. Looking at it, the king dwells upon the beauties of ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... be sure I have no right to laugh at you—a million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth—but you are not about to establish a third link in your chain—you will not find any especial connexion between your pirates and a goat—pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, When ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... frugal of my mirth] By breaking this speech into exclamations, the text may stand; but I once thought it must be read, If I was not then frugal ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... dreaming of the Emperor's flight, mount his horse and ride, like a man demented, to Longwood, only to be assured by the officer on duty that all was well and that the smitten hero was still his prisoner. When Napoleon was told of these nocturnal visitations, he was overcome with mirth, but at the same time filled with contempt, not alone for this amazing specimen, but for the creatures who had ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... with each; and what more does the Church require? Religion as a feeling of the mind, and devotion as an act of the soul, are unknown to them. I recollect meeting in the rural lanes leading from St John Lateran to the church of Maria Maggiore, a small party of Roman girls, who were strangely mixing mirth and worship,—chatting, laughing, and singing hymns to the Virgin,—just as Scotch maidens on a harvest field might diversify their labours with "Home, Sweet Home," or any other air. This irreverent familiarity shows itself in other ways, after the manner of the ancient pagans, who ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... death by matricidal hands. See ye these heart-wounds, whence and how they came? Yea, when it sleeps, the mind is bright with eyes; But in the day it is man's lot to lack All true discernment. Many a gift of mine Have ye lapped up, libations pure from wine, And soothing rites that shut out drunken mirth; And I dread banquets of the night would offer On altar-hearth, at hour no god might share. And lo! all this is trampled under foot. He is escaped, and flees, like fawn, away, And even from the midst of all your toils Has nimbly slipped, and draws wide mouth at ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... and Dick to each other then (twenty years ago) we cannot, out of that slender material, build up a hearty fraternal conversation of to-day. And with advancing years we find that the old subjects that we spent hours of mirth over, a life-time ago, are not amusing to-day, if indeed our defective memories can recall them. Ah! how little it took to furnish youth with mirth, that common standing ground upon which all so easily form acquaintance and friendship. ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... me more, than to see Men Laugh so freely at a Comedy, and yet account it a silly weakness to Weep at a Tragedy. For is it less natural for a Man's Heart to relent upon a Scene of Pity, than to be transported with Joy upon one of Mirth and Humour? Or is it only the alteration of the Features of one's Face that makes us forbear Crying? But this alteration is undoubtedly as great in an immoderate Laughter, as in a most desperate Grief; and good Breeding teaches us to avoid ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... includes solid instruction as well as genial and captivating mirth. The scientific knowledge of the writer ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... O lithe and tuneful Utah, Reply brown jade; There are no other joys secure to either Man or maid. Soon you are old and heavy hearted, Lost to mirth; While on you lies the white ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... dark entirely; dark of skin, or rather olive, as you find men and women among a Celtic people; dark of eye to the point of a scowl, behind which, however, there was a well of mirth; dark of hair and dark of beard. His hair he wore long, not being always within reach of scissors, and his beard had that silky texture which comes of never having known ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... in sympathy, and Jim, half-suspecting that he ought to be offended at this frank mirth, looked ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... get my wife and boy, one after another, to read to me: and so spent the afternoon and the evening, and so after supper to bed. And thus endeth this month, with many different days of sadness and mirth, from differences between me and my wife, from her remembrance of my late unkindness to her with Willet, she not being able to forget it, but now and then hath her passionate remembrance of it as often as prompted to it by any occasion; but this night we are ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... there. He does not weep for some months to come. His outcry soon becomes the human cry that is better known than loved, but tears belong to later infancy. And if the infant of days neither wails nor weeps, the infant of months is still too young to be gay. A child's mirth, when at last it begins, is his first secret; you understand little of it. The first smile (for the convulsive movement in sleep that is popularly adorned by that name is not a smile) is an uncertain sketch of a smile, unpractised but ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... as your son? I own, replied she, there may be pastry-cooks who can make as good tarts; but as I make them after a peculiar manner, and nobody but my son is let into the secret, it must absolutely be he who made this. Come, my brother, added she in transport, let us call up mirth and joy; we have at last found what we have been so long looking for! Madam, said the vizier, I entreat you to moderate your impatience, for we shall quickly know the truth. All we have to do, is to bring the pastry-cook hither, and then you and my daughter will readily distinguish whether it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... part of the attendants looked on in silent terror and astonishment; whilst others, intoxicated, or probably paid to act this scandalous farce, danced round the flames with an appearance of frantic and savage mirth.—It is not to be forgotten, that representatives of the people often presided as the high priests of these rites; and their official dispatches to the convention, in which these ceremonies were minutely described, were always heard with ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... to it, but I go not," said the young Athenian; "slaughter in the daytime, feasting at night—blood on the hands—wine at the lips—I hate, I loathe this union of massacre and mirth! Go you and enjoy the revel in the palace of your king; were I present, I should see at the banquet the shadowy forms of that glorious matron and her sons; I should hear above the laughter, the shout, and the song, the thrilling tones of voices confessing unshaken ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Alas! the blue wells were running over now. He took her cold hands in his; he knelt beside her and passed his arm around her waist. He drew her head upon his shoulder. He was not sure that any of these things were effective until she suddenly lifted her eyes to his with the last ray of mirth in them vanishing in a big teardrop, put her arms round his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... brought out the extraordinary capacities of the book which have exercised so many minds. For "The Pickwick Examination," he says, "was not altogether a burlesque of a college examination; it was a very real and searching examination in a book which, brimful as it is of merriment, mirth, and wit, is just as intensely human as a book can be. The characters are not puppets in a farce, stuck up only to be knocked down: they are men and women. Page after page, they show their true characters and reveal themselves; they are consistent; even when they are most absurd ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... contemplated: on this night, however, the aspect of affairs brightened up amazingly; the house was crowded; a brilliant show of ladies graced the boxes; the performances were a repetition of two pieces which had been previously acted, and from first to last the mirth was electric; the good people appeared, by common consent, to abandon themselves to the fun of the scene, and laughed a gorge deployee. At the fall of the curtain, after, in obedience to the call of the house, I had ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... be struggling with his mirth. "I see you do. Well, ma'am, I've been most everything since I hit the West, but this is the first time I've been ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... joy to all who hear they bring, Sweet to recite and sweet to sing. For music's sevenfold notes are there, And triple measure,(57) wrought with care With melody and tone and time, And flavours(58) that enhance the rime; Heroic might has ample place, And loathing of the false and base, With anger, mirth, and terror, blent With tenderness, surprise, content. When, half the hermit's grace to gain, And half because they loved the strain, The youth within their hearts had stored The poem that his lips outpoured, Valmiki kissed them ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... she's honest, and the best of friends. Or her, whose life the church and scandal share, For ever in a passion or a prayer. Or her, who laughs at hell, but (like her Grace[15]) Cries, 'Ah! how charming, if there's no such place!' Or who in sweet vicissitude appears Of mirth and opium, ratafia and tears, 110 The daily anodyne, and nightly draught, To kill those foes to fair ones—time and thought. Woman and fool are two hard things to hit; For true no-meaning puzzles more ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... part of the wild wood was ringing With sounds full of mirth and of glee; Some dizzily high in the free air were swinging, While others climbed up the ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... "style" or "custom" or family convenience. When we come to choose between following fashions and disobeying them, we generally decide that it is better to do a foolish or slightly harmful thing than to occasion criticism, mirth, or even special notice by our dress ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... of mirth made the rafters ring, and the trio laughed till they cried, much to Peace's surprise, for the scene she had just depicted had caused her much indignation, and she could see nothing funny about it. "If you don't be stiller you'll wake ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... suppressed laughter, the two miscreants hurried on, waiting to be out of ear-shot before giving way to their wild mirth. As they drew near to the veranda they heard the crowd there singing to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... thenceforth Ere sorely the edge-hate 'twixt Son and Wife's Father After the slaughter-strife there should awaken. Then the ghost heavy-strong bore with it hardly E'en for a while of time, bider in darkness, That there on each day of days heard he the mirth-tide Loud in the hall-house. There was the harp's voice, And clear song of shaper. Said he who could it 90 To tell the first fashion of men from aforetime; Quoth how the Almighty One made the Earth's fashion, The fair field and bright midst the bow of the Waters, And with victory beglory'd set Sun ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... were, that night. Sedate and solemn were the score of rubbers in which Mr. Pickwick and the old lady played together; uproarious was the mirth of the round table. Long after the ladies had retired, did the hot elder wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep and pleasant were the dreams ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... my life and lot may show, Years blank with gloom or cheered by mem'ry's glow, Turmoil or peace; never be it mine, I pray, To be a dweller of the peopled earth, Save 'neath a roof alive with children's mirth Loud through ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... up and cover the whole sky in a it, you'd a thought of it if you had seed his face. It looked as dark as Egypt. 'For shame!' says he, 'Sam, that's ondecent; and let me tell you that a man that jokes on such subjects, shows both a lack of wit and sense too. I like mirth, you know I do, for it's only the Pharisees and hypocrites that wear long faces, but then mirth must be innocent to please me; and when I see a man make merry with serious things, I set him down as a lost sheep. That comes of your speculatin' to ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde's genius in perfect efflorescence—his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisite sensibility. Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liesse without emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour of those delicious specimens of self-advertisement: "Mr. Beerbohm Tree also writes: 'Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friends hardly ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... was old and damp, smelled slightly of mildew. At times there was an odor of eau de Cologne in the passages, or sometimes from a half-open door downstairs the noisy mirth of the common men sitting and drinking rose to the first floor, much to the disgust of the gentlemen who were there. Madame Tellier, who was on friendly terms with her customers, did not leave the room, and took much interest in what ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the solemn whim, That, like a shadow, loiter'd over him, Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursed With none of the mad thoughts that were at first The poison of his quiet; but he grew To love the world and its wild laughter too, As he had known before; and wish'd again To join the very mirth he hated then! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... Lavishly and omnipotently as ever In the open hills, the undissembling dales, The laughing-places of the juvenile earth. For lo! the wills of man and woman meet, Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared, As once in Eden's prodigal bowers befell, To share his shameless, elemental mirth In one great act of faith: while deep and strong, Incomparably nerved and cheered, The enormous heart of London joys to beat To the measures of his rough, majestic song; The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell That keeps the rolling universe ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... might as a speculation have done to get a cast of her face for andirons to keep the American child from falling into the fire; but marry her! Good Lord! When I eat anything now that disagrees with me, I dream of Emily's mouth," affirmed Mr. Ketchum, with the most laughing mirth in his eyes, his mobile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... mean; and the behaviour of the merry ones was perfectly unintelligible to the rest. Reginald, still bound by his promise to Marianne, was wild to make his discovery known, and behaved in such a strange and comical manner as to call forth various reproofs from Eleanor, which provoked double mirth from the others. The cause of their amusement was ostensibly the talking over of yesterday's fete, but the laughing was more than adequate, even to the wonderful collection of odd speeches and adventures ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was more and more astonished to find the guttural laughter around him increase and increase until the whole place resounded with roars, while some of the old Herren held their sides in pain, as the tears of the gigantic mirth streamed down their cheeks. Those who were able hammered loud applause on the table before them; others rolled in their chairs; many could only lie back and send their merriment up to the reverberating roof ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... saved me from getting a soaking, as I was just going overboard after Herb. Rack thought he wouldn't take a bath this morning, but he did, just the same. Ho! ho! ho!" The cause for the laugh seemed to be nervousness and excitement rather than mirth. ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... to Turk's back, leading the dog by another cord, as he was very rebellious at first; but our threats and caresses at last induced him to submit to his burden. We proceeded slowly, and I could not help anticipating the mirth of my little ones, when they saw us approach like ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... the clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nunez's. But after Kid Rickard's jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound of a man ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... door and snickered, then in at the window, then peeked down from between the rafters and cachinnated till his sides must have ached; then struck an attitude upon the chimney, and fairly squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact, he grew so obstreperous, and so disturbed our repose, that we had to "shoo" him away with one of our boots. He declared most plainly that he had never before seen so preposterous ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... with no particular mirth in her voice. And MacRae was stricken dumb. She was angry. He knew it, felt it intuitively. Angry at him, warning him to keep his distance. He watched her dabble her hands in the salt chuck, dry them coolly on a piece of burlap. She took the money for the ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... finished it and hurled it from him so that it broke noisily. A few times she heard them laugh; she could distinguish Brodie's throaty, bull tone and Benny's nervous cackle. Jarrold did not appear made for mirth, and him she feared most of all; yes, even more than Brodie, whom she had seen do murder, and Benny who, she knew, had done murder. Brail and the Italian said little; they were men to follow where other men led. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... "Boiling Down" invariably broke into such paroxsyms of laughter that further utterance was impossible. Often as he attempted it, his narrative of the proceedings ended in such violent mirth that his hearers could not restrain themselves from joining in. They were obliged to acknowledge that he looked upon the affair as the funniest ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... taken care that he should not—and, standing in the wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and now a peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the significance of the stars of Orion ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... unfailing drollery that scandalized the grave seniors of the Court, there is full proof that Prince Hal ever kept free from the gross vices which a later age has fancied inseparably connected with his frolics; and though always in disgrace, the vexation of the Court, and a by-word for mirth, he was true to the grand ideal he was waiting to accomplish, and never dimmed the purity and loftiness of his aim. That little band of princely youths, who sported, studied, laughed, sang, and schemed in the glades of Windsor, were ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... demoralizing influences and its destructiveness to human happiness. I have never seen a happy slave. I have seen him dance in his chains, it is true, but he was not happy. There is a wide difference between happiness and mirth. Man can not enjoy happiness while his manhood is destroyed. Slaves, however, may be, and sometimes are mirthful. When hope is extinguished, they say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." [Here stones were thrown at the windows—a great ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and little worth Excepting as to burn, That we may warm and make our mirth Until the Spring return— Until the Spring return, good sirs. When people walk abroad; Which well must be as ye can see— And ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... thick as fur. His expression had tremendous sparkle. But his main physical charm was a smile which crumpled his brown face into an engaging irregularity of contour and lighted it with an expression brilliant with mirth and friendliness. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... or sink, your lights around him shine. And there shall flow, bubbling with woe or mirth, From these new bottles your familiar wine, As ancient as man's rule upon ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... miseries of war, and the flood of evils it spreads over a country, did not check all inclination to mirth, and turn laughter into grief, the frantic conduct of the government of England would only excite ridicule. But it is impossible to banish from one's mind the images of suffering which the contemplation ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Roberts does for the smart set of London what Mrs. Wharton has done in 'The House of Mirth' for the American social class of the same name.... It is a powerful novel, a merciless dissection of modern society similar to that which a skilled surgeon would make of a pathological case."—The ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, "She is mine by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me." Ah! how he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how his life would be ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... Or the calm breeze, that rustles in the leaves Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green Invests some wasted tow'r. . . . Then, when the sullen shades of ev'ning close, Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam The dying embers scatter, far remote From Mirth's mad shouts, that thro' th' illumin'd roof Resound with festive echo, let me sit, Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge. . . . O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought! O come with saintly look, and steadfast step, From forth thy cave embower'd ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... unmoved by mirth; indeed, as she raised her drooping head, amazed at the clamour, an unwary tear trickled down her long nose into her tea. She was given to revelling in anniversaries of dead and gone joys or sorrows; the one ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and Rathburn was rewarded by the flashing gleam of two rows of pearls and eyes merry with mirth. But her reciprocating mood of cheerfulness ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... to the sailing of the Bounty. The ship was crowded the whole day with the natives, and she was loaded with presents of cocoa-nuts, plantains, bread-fruits, hogs, and goats. Contrary to what had been the usual practice, there was this evening no dancing or mirth on the beach, such as they had long been accustomed to, but ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... lively young sculptress knew better than to overdo: what she did must appear to spring all from mirth; so she laughed as if unwillingly, and said, "I MUSTN'T laugh at Mildred! In the first place, she's your—your cousin. And in the second place, she's not meant to be funny; it isn't right to laugh at really splendid people who take themselves seriously. In the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... long flashing sabre-curves of flight. A yellow-throat, destined to become the breakfast of a lazy hawk still swinging above the river, was especially moved to such a causeless and idiotic roulade of mirth that the master listening to the foolish bird was fain to whistle too. He presently stopped, however, with a slight embarrassment. For a few paces before ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... inactive, while her companions sported on the grass, without fear of incommoding themselves. The pleasure she had lately taken in viewing her fine slip and shoes was, at this moment, but a poor compensation for the mirth and merriment she ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... and objectless annoyance. Throughout the whole play runs a healthy, thoughtless, honest, almost riotous happiness; no note of difficulty, no shadow of coming doubt being perceptible. The pert and nimble spirit of mirth is fully awakened; the worst tricks of the intermeddling spirits are mischievous merely, and of only transitory influence, and "the summer still doth tend upon their state," brightening this fairyland with its sunshine ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... (but wherefore I know not), lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... that harmless mirth, No more shall gladden our domestic hearth; That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow— Better than words—no more assuage our woe. That hand outstretch'd from small but well-earned store Yield succor ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... smile, and became rather talkative herself. She modestly talked about Paris, about her travels, about Baden; twice she made Marya Dmitrievna laugh, and on each occasion she heaved another little sigh, as though she were mentally reproaching herself for her ill-timed mirth; she asked permission to bring Ada; removing her gloves, she showed, with her smooth hands washed with soap a la guimauve, how and where flounces, ruches, lace, and knots of ribbon were worn; she promised to bring a phial of the new English perfume, Victoria's ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... was drowned in roars of laughter, in which the judge joined, in spite of himself. When the mirth in court had subsided a little, I went on: 'I told Mr. Tillington I would only marry him in case he was poor and without expectations. If he inherited Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's money, I could never be his wife,' I said ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... delayed. The horses could only proceed at the slowest of foot-paces, and we were constantly brought to a complete stop for some minutes before the post-boy could force a passage through the unwilling crowd. This produced a feeling of irritation, and despair of ever reaching my destination; and the mirth and careless hilarity of the people round us chafed with bitter contrast on my depressed spirits. I inquired from the post-boy what was the origin of so great a commotion, and understood him to say in reply that it was a religious festival held annually in honour of "Our ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... not until quite a while after sunset that we started on our return to the city. We made several attempts to revive the mirth and lively talk that usually signalized our rambles, but they seem'd forced and discordant, like laughter in a sick-room. My brother was the only one who preserved his usual ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise—but ye are wise, And ye know ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was follow'd by a band Of men, all clad like rovers of the sea, And brown'd were they as is the desert sand, Loud in their mirth, and of their bearing free; And gifts they bore, from the deep treasury And forests of some far-off Eastern lord, Vases of gold, and bronze, and ivory, That might ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... The assistant was so busily occupied that he saw nor heard nothing of it all, till he raised his head, and seeing many of the scholars trying to conceal their laughter, and even observing an expression of quiet mirth on Mr. Oswald's face, he looked from one to another with such a ludicrous manner of enquiry and astonishment it made the matter still worse. But, whatever Mr. Lawrence may lack in any way, is more than made up to us in Mr. Oswald. He is past thirty years of age, he is married, and has a little ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... with the deep bowls and well-filled cups and pitchers borne to the sitters along the floor—just the description of the old Saxon banquet which the poet knew of. We have the drunken glee of Holofernes, his right noisy laughter and the stormy mirth that could be heard from afar; and his call to the henchmen to quit them as warriors ought, till at last they lie in their drunken sleep, powerless, and as though ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... yer gran'dad say ter me?" "He won't know who ye be; he will jes 'low ye air one o' the boys who air always foolin' away thar time visitin' me an' makin' tallow-dips skeerce." The sudden gleam of mirth on her face was like an illuminating burst of sunshine, and somehow it cast an irradiation into the heart of the fugitive, for, after she was gone out of sight, he ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Two results followed, one mirth-provoking, the other leading to serious thought. The amusing result was that the theologians were greatly alarmed by the book: it was loudly insisted that it promoted atheism. Looking back along the line of thought which has since been developed, one feels ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... pray you, now, No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth. We have done with dancing measures; sing that song You call the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; But man is a soger, and life is a faught; My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, And my Freedom's my ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... an authoritative hand, and the same hand, gentle now, laid its firmness upon the woman and released the prisoner. It was Hamish Channing who had come to the rescue, suppressing his mirth as he best could ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... it; and he holds tenaciously to all he gets. It may be true that he carries these virtues too far, but I do most earnestly plead that if the colored people will only emulate the Jew, they, like the Jew, will win, like him they will become strong, and like him in scorning boisterous mirth and passion, will ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... recount again what had occurred. And when the full gist of it came home, Arthur brought down a heavy hand on the shoulder of Cadoris who was shaking with laughter and himself fell into a seat nearby for very faintness at his own mirth. While about him there was great boisterousness and loud guffaws. A yeoman who had listened eagerly to the account hurried without and himself recounted to the men there what had happened at the court of King Mark. So that there ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... the Trapper, speaking to Bill, who, having taken a look into the old man's kettle, was digging his knuckles into his eyes to free them from the spray that was jetted into them from the fountains of mirth within that were now in full play,—"Lord! ef there isn't another piece of tater gone all to pieces! Bill, ef I make another circle with this ladle, there won't be a whole slice left, and ye'll swear there wasn't a tater in the soup." ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... it was only this big root!" said Creighton, and laughed aloud in his relief. Then his mirth abruptly gave way to surprise. "Hello," he ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... But captiousness and jealousy are likewise easily offended, and to him who studiously looks for an affront, every mode of behaviour will supply it; freedom will be rudeness, and reserve sullenness; mirth will be negligence, and seriousness formality; when he is received with ceremony, distance and respect are inculcated; if he is treated with familiarity, he concludes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... strange symptom will excite your mirth.[453] Some copies of a work are struck off with deviations from the usually received ones, and although these deviations have generally neither sense nor beauty to recommend them (and indeed are principally defects!), yet copies of this description are eagerly sought after by collectors ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them with but the last breath of life.... They are fond of games and gambling, and amuse themselves like children, in relating extravagant stories, to cause surprise and mirth." [Footnote: Bartram's Travels in ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... story," Cappy interrupted. "Let me tell it to you, Skinner. Oh, dear! I believe this is about going to kill the boys up on 'Change when I tell them." He wiped his eyes, controlled his mirth and turned to the general manager. "Skinner," he said, "did you know I had gotten back into the harness while you were up at the Astoria mill? Well I did, Skinner. I had to, you know. If it was the last act of my life ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... but it was of the melancholy sort of mirth, and did not come from his heart. He hesitated, as though considering whether he should make a full expression or reserve his ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... could have seen him when I told him that the money was not really mine," continued Elisabeth, bubbling over with mirth at the recollection; "he cooled down so very quickly, and so rapidly turned his thoughts in another direction. Don't you know what it is to bite a gooseberry at the front door while it pops out at the back? Well, Cecil Farquhar's love-making ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... room for mirth or trifling here, For worldly hope, or worldly fear, If life so soon is gone; If now the Judge is at the door, And all mankind must ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and virtuous man had been made the object of their designs, or a weak man of good intentions, every successful step they should take against him ought rather to fill the audience with horror than pleasure and mirth; and if in the conclusion their plots should be baffled, even this would come too late to prevent that ill impression. But in the Lawsuit this is admirably avoided: for the character chosen is a rich, avaricious usurer: the pecuniary distresses ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... theatre in Twenty-third street, just west of the Sixth avenue. It is one of the cosiest and most comfortable places in the city, and is usually filled with an audience of city people of the better class. The music is good, the singing excellent, and the mirth unrestrained and hearty. Dan Bryant, himself one of the most irresistibly humorous delineators of the "burnt cork opera," has collected a band of genuine artists, and has fairly won his success. He has raised Negro ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that which they will never obtain, and that is, happiness independent of God. Some tell us that they mean to make the most of life, and to be happy while they live; therefore, begone, reflection! religion is not for the spring-tide of youth; mirth and merry days are for the young; soberness and the russet garb of autumn belong to the decline of life, which certainly to them, they think, is far off;—as though every material necessary for their last, ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... my friends under the excitement of song and mirth frequently clutched my arm and pointed to imaginary batches of Dutchmen standing suspiciously near the line and presumably intent on wrecking the train. These were usually prickly-pear bushes. When we approached Modder River he exclaimed ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... of our country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and M-ll-g-n who sang The Night before Larry was stretched in their usual mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... disappointment on Master Vallance's face as he beheld this dexterity moved the thirst-slaked Halfman to new mirth. But while he laughed he thrust his hand in his breeches-pocket and pulled out a palm full ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... before his eyes that memorable scene: Obed watching and smoking on his bed by the side of the door—the family sleeping peacefully in the ajoining room—the sound of footsteps, of violent knockings, of furious entrance, or wild and lawless mirth. He imagined the flight of the old man and his wife, who in terror, or perhaps through cunning and treachery, gave up their hotel and their guests to the fury of the brigands. He brought before his mind ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... help that Hubert would have in the far-off land. No braver heart of all they knew could have been found to share his pilgrimage; and they imagined how Adele's keen sense of humor might turn many a sorry happening into mirth. Also she had served an apprenticeship here among the poor and outcast whom she had come to love and ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... it's not a bad deal," he said to himself, blinking at the red light of the fire. "Not half bad. Seven thousand dollars for two thousand dollars, and every cent of it realizable." He shook with inward mirth. "The Hon. William Bunning-Ford will now have to disgorge every stick of his estate. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... things, past parade, Emerging from the mist and shade That hid them from our gaze, And full of song and ringing mirth, In one glad moment of rebirth, Again they walk the ways of earth, As in the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth; And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, I saw the fire place ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... your scarifying mirth, which would have been much worse. 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound,' but he who jests at them after he has felt them is the hero. Observe that I still jest." He put his lips to a bleeding tear on his wrist as he spoke. "My only regret is that the rose haws ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... has become of all your mirth and gayety? Are you not well? Or has some misfortune befallen you? Tell us that we may ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted to the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in resuming it. ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... their feet and came closer in order to see better. They remained standing, full of mirth and curiosity, ready to bet for or ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... not disappoint. He had entertained and interested the vast assemblage, which frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause as the gestures and the mirth-provoking look emphasised the racy hits that punctuated the address. "No man," said the Tribune, "ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience. He is one of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... festive board, the conversation, and the cups of Rhenish wine, seemed equally to circulate without restraint. We were cheerful, even to loud mirth; and the smallness of the party, compared with the size of the hall, caused the sounds of our voices to be reverberated from every quarter. Meantime, the sun threw his radiant beams through a window of noble dimensions, quite across the saloon—so as to keep us ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... we pass through what I call the "robin racket,"—trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth or anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the train is a female. One cannot see that the males in pursuit of her are rivals; it seems rather as if they had united to hustle her out of the place. But somehow the matches are no doubt made and sealed during these ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... in a stranger's court. Fed on stranger's food, Stranger's money makes us sport— Not so very good. Stranger women gave us birth. Stranger men begot; Baby elephants in mirth, We're ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... discover any news in its columns, or to ascertain distinctly whether it had any columns at all, walked slowly out to look for the moon, and, after coming back quite pale with looking up at the sky so long, and attempting to express mirth at Mr. Robert Smithers having fallen asleep, by various galvanic chuckles, laid his head on his arm, and went to sleep also. When he awoke again, Mr. Robert Smithers awoke too, and they both very gravely agreed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... gravely unscrewed me and I emerged from my travelling-carriage in mid-channel had pleased John Turner vastly. Indeed, he told the story to the end of his days, and even brought that end within hail at times by an over-indulgence in apoplectic mirth. He chuckled at it now in the midst of this solemn service. But I, more easily moved perhaps by outward show and pomp, could only think of our surroundings. The excitement of giving my creditors the slip was a thing of the past; for those were rapid days, and I no laggard, as many took ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... the sand, And fringe the edge on either hand With myrtle rich in shadow; The shepherds and the sheep rejoice, In joy and mirth you hear their voice ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... I stimulated the intellect, the emotions, the passions or the physiological functions, so as to bring out Memory, Intuition, Somnolence, Spirituality, Love, Religion, Hope to ecstasy, Pride, Arrogance, Combativeness, Avarice, Hunger, Theft, Insanity, Sleep, Mirth, Grief, etc., etc., and the organs that change the action of the heart, the muscular strength and the bodily temperature. These experiments have been made before great numbers of enlightened persons and have been largely repeated by my students. Manifestly I cannot speak with any less confidence ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... it! I'm glad of it!" cried Dick, with a new access of mirth. "The old rascal! Giving my wife jewels! Why, Lena, you couldn't wear his stuff anyway, after all this fracas. It will do to trim a ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... thee—hasten—hast no ears?' 'Ah! that I have,' the fowl replied; 'But what from master might betide? Or cook, with cleaver at his side? Return you may for such a call, But let me fly their fatal hall; And spare your mirth at my expense: Whate'er I lack, 'tis not the sense To know that all this sweet-toned breath Is spent to lure me to my death. If you had seen upon the spit As many of the falcons roast As I have of the capon host, You would, not thus ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... equal measure of torment after it, suppose the pain of the stone, or such like. But when this misery is eternal, O what madness and folly is it to plunge into it! "I said of laughter, It is madness, and of mirth, What doth it?" But the Christian's peace and joy is of another nature. Yet as no man knoweth the "hidden manna," the "new name," and the "white stone," but he that hath it, (Rev. ii. 17) so no man can apprehend what these are, till he taste ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
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