"Gayety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Julius Fontaine is another home for me; he and his wife are a family for me. When I am gay, I go to them to pour out my gayety; if I am sad, I go to them to have my grief consoled; they receive kindly both my joy and my sorrow. No fixed day nor hour of admission, no ceremony and grand toilet; they receive me when I arrive; they welcome rue in whatever costume I present myself. I enjoy to the utmost, with these good ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the patience, the steadiness, and the kindliness of his friend. Esther had fallen into the best of hands. She would find again the joy of life. He had no doubt of that. Gayety and laughter were ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... heart, but his longings had changed with the quality of his love and he glowed at the thought of delivering the girl from her dreary surroundings and giving her the tenderness, the ease and comfort, the innocent gayety, that her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... care-free life!" sighed Francis-Frank. "Decidedly I must reform my ways. One finds so much gayety and happiness among the criminal classes, as I observed when I first met Mr. Johnson—in ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... vacant; and, during the evening, it was rumored that the captain had placed him under arrest, which information produced a feeling of safety and relief. We breathed once more. That evening, we resumed our games and dances. Miss Nelly, especially, displayed a spirit of thoughtless gayety which convinced me that if Rozaine's attentions had been agreeable to her in the beginning, she had already forgotten them. Her charm and good-humor completed my conquest. At midnight, under a bright moon, I ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... eyes were set like tiles amidst the dense green undergrowth beneath the pines, and on the natural lawns about the white houses. Although hope of driving forth the intruder had gone forever in January, Monterey had resumed in part her old gayety; despair had bred philosophy. But Monterey was Monterey no longer. An American alcalde with a power vested in no judge of the United States ruled over her; to add injury to insult, he had started a newspaper. The town was full of Americans; the United States was constructing a fort on ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... gayety and gladness was instantly turned into consternation and confusion. A young lady lured away from the Tip-Top! And the hotel crowded ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... her head. "I know not. None of us at court knows. Master Dyer saith—but surely that one is not worthy—" She ceased to speak, nor knew there had been in her tone both pain and wistfulness. Presently she laughed out, with the facile gayety that one in her position must needs be practised in. "Ah, sir, tell me her name! ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... grace, yet gayety Would have no place except for me; I greet the gardener with a grin, E'en though I lie the grave within. I'm with the King, yet shun the Queen; I walk in grey, ah! yes in green; I gleam in gold, yet live in gloom, And at ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... end of the week," said Crosby, grinning. "It's going to be full of gayety. Thursday, paymaster's coming out with our cash, and to-night that Miss Post from New York arrives in the up stage. She's to visit the colonel, so everybody will have to give ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... sun burnt, and freckled, so that the emperor might not desire her. She succeeded in repelling the suit, and the emperor married Claudia of the Tyrol. The court of the Elector Palatine was brilliant in opulence and gayety. Eleonora was compelled to mingle with the festive throng in the scenes of pomp and splendor; but her thoughts, her affections, were elsewhere, and all the vanities of princely life had no influence in leading her heart from God. She passed several hours, every day, in devotional ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... was rather a silent one. Kitty was decidedly sulky, Dora thoughtful, and Karl a little bitter in his forced gayety; so that Sunshine, sensitive as a mimosa, ate but little, and, creeping close to Dora's side as they rose from ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... says he, "good-by. Sometimes in the midst of your fashionable career, in your gayety and so forth, pause," he says, "and give a thought to the broken-hearted pauper who has ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that were not employed in reading or writing with my father, or walking with my governess, Jaqueline, I spent with my aunt; and whether seeing her embroider, or hearing her sing, whether sitting or standing by her side, I was ever happy. Her tenderness and unaffected gayety, the charms of her figure and countenance have left such indelible impressions on my mind, that her manner, look, and attitude are still before my eyes; I recollect a thousand little caressing questions; could describe her clothes, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... regulations of this body of troops; not the least negligence or slovenliness is allowed in the most trifling detail. In fine, the care, and that descending to note the smallest minutiae, which brought this race of soldiers to such a pitch of perfection, leaving them their gayety and sprightliness, and, notwithstanding the rigidness of the discipline, giving solidity and precision to irregular troops, was rewarded by success unparalleled in history. It was the best practical school for soldiers and officers; and many of the best generals in the French army began their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... stirred by the wind, to see the frank smile light up the gray eyes and curve the sweet red lips; to listen to the musical voice, the low brief laugh, which was so distinct from the ordinary girl's giggle or forced and affected gayety. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... educated, polished, and softened, by the delicate influences of what they ate and drunk, as to be now a little more than mortal for the nonce. And there was that gentle, delicious sadness, too, which we find in the very summit of our most exquisite enjoyments, and feel it a charm beyond all the gayety through which it keeps breathing its undertone. In the present case, it was worth a heavier sigh, to reflect that such a festal achievement,—the production of so much art, skill, fancy, invention, and perfect taste,—the growth of ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be trusted in an emergency. The French, on the contrary, had brought all they could of Paris with them; their army was encumbered with women, wig-makers, barbers, and the like impedimenta, and confusion and gayety in their ranks replaced the stern discipline of Frederick's camp. After the battle, the booty is said to have consisted largely of objects of gallantry better suited for a boudoir ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... sensitive mind, that these amiable people knew his story; and, no doubt, in all its harrowing details. Simultaneously those details flashed into his own consciousness with a horrible distinctness, depressing his spirits and extinguishing a natural gayety and light chaff that had ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... this lovely scene; for the measures were so well danced, the steps so intelligently placed, the sudden pauses timed so accurately and making so elegant an effect, that one did not know what to admire most,—the beautiful manner of moving, or the majesty of the halts, now expressing excessive gayety, now a beautiful and haughty disdain. Who could dance with such elegance and grace as the royal brother and sister? None, I believe; and I have watched the King dancing with the Queen of Spain and the Queen of Scotland, each of whom ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the other girl's companionship, could see her every day, she didn't know that she would greatly care where she was. Perhaps she could even endure hardship. How serious Elsie Moss had been about her motto, "Per aspera ad astra." For all her gayety, she felt she could go through hardship bravely. Ah, she was a rare person! For the first time in her life Elsie Marley was homesick—and ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... hundred thousand inhabitants set in the midst of a park, that seat of government which does not dare to call itself the capital because Amsterdam is jealous—was in especially good form and humor, looking forward to a winter of unhurried gayety and feasting such as the Hollanders love. The new Palace of Peace, given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie for the use of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and its auxiliary bodies, had been opened with much ceremony in ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... southern states of the American Union have been conscripted and shipped in great numbers to ports in France for unloading the incoming American steamers. Their cheerfulness has quite captivated the gayety loving French, who never tire of listening to their laughter and their ragtime songs. When the "bosses" want to get a dockyard job done in double-quick time they usually order a brass band to play ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness, and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was merely "stickin' up for Sparrell's judgment" without any reference to her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away; the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... would induce me to pluck such as he out of the fire while I hated the garments spotted by his sins. I sat down trembling with emotion. I heard a murmur of disapprobation. There was a check to the gayety of the evening. Frank Miller, bold and bad as he was looked crestfallen and uneasy. Some who appeared to be more careful of the manners of society than its morals, said that I was very rude. Others said that I was too prudish, ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... judge for yourself," said Peter with a gayety that was forced in proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister's peculiarities—even her secret—be safe from the clear eyes of ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... by a blazing fire the girls held brief session, sitting with unbound hair and swinging slippered feet, and cheeks still flushed with the night's gayety. ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... to forget it," said I, with a praiseworthy attempt at gayety, "and take the next car ...
— Options • O. Henry
... whether she felt any lingering traces of pique with him, she had been the same: no girl ever wore a merrier heart. But a sudden change came now. In the friendly freedom of the green-banked alcove, Sharlee's gayety dropped from her like a painted mask, which, having amused the children, has done its full part. Against the back of the cushioned settle where they sat she leaned a weary head, and frankly let her ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fiction with scores of fine characters. His genial humor which has brightened life for so many thousands of readers; his tender pathos which brings tears to the eyes of those who seldom weep over imaginary or even real grief or pain; his rollicking gayety which makes one enjoy good food and good drink in his tales almost as much as if one really shared in those feasts he was so fond of describing; his keen sympathy with the poor and the suffering; his flaming anger against injustice and cruelty that ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call BLESSED! There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look forward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness from their countenances. I meet one such in the street not unfrequently, a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that he passes) such a rayless and chilling look of recognition,—something as if he were one of Heaven's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... maples, the bare branches of the tardier trees, opposed no barrier to the sunlight. It streamed into the world below the treetops, and lay warm upon the dead leaves and the green moss and the fragile wild flowers. There was a noise of birds, and a fox barked. All was lightness, gayety, and warmth; the sap was running, the heyday of the spring at hand. Ah! to be riding with her, to be going home through the fairy forest, the sunshine, and the singing!... The happy miles to Weyanoke, the smell ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... do, mam'zelle?" he asked, anxiously, and with his slow, solemn utterance; "it is not a place that will do for a young lady like you, is it? I should have counselled you to go on to Jersey, where there is more life and gayety; it is my home, but for you it will be nothing but a ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... me a new world — All is gayety, good-humour, and diversion. The eye is continually entertained with the splendour of dress and equipage; and the ear with the sound of coaches, chairs, and other carriages. The merry bells ring round, from morn till night. Then we ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... they brought to him, ate and drank and suffered. Everything was as it had been that other night—the popping of corks, the soft music, the laughter of women, the pleasant, luxurious sense of warmth and gayety pervading ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... breath is less eager, then is the time to seek religious solitude; when old we should avoid, as a shame, desire of wealth, but get honor in the world by a religious life; but when young, and the heart light and elastic, then is the time to partake of pleasure, in boon companionship to indulge in gayety, and partake to the full of mutual intercourse; but as years creep on, giving up indulgence, to observe the ordinances of religion, to mortify the five desires, and go on increasing a joyful and religious heart, is not this the law of the eminent kings of old, who as a ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... their very weakness. What lends a peculiar pathos and charm to his figure is the purity and gentleness of his mind, the efforts by which he clung to truth in the cruel darkness of mental disease, and the innocent gayety and light-heartedness which alternated with gloom. Like Rousseau, Cowper had, by the very reaction from sadness, a rare keenness of enjoyment. Little things were enough to feast it, and hence the most trivial matters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... me," said Fleda. Her gayety suddenly sobered, she took off her bonnet and coat and throwing them down in the kitchen stole softly along the passage to her grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door and held her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might tell her he ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... blown-out sleeves, of almost bustles and absolute ballet skirts, but here, without doubt, disguised as she might be by the unaccustomed stiffness and old fashion of her costume, was a butterfly of butterflies. Here was the gayety of the period—the soft wine of eyes, the songs that flurried hearts, the toasts and tie bouquets, the dances and the dinners. Here was a Venus of the hansom, cab, the Gibson girl in ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... rear, and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Richard came as usual for the Easter vacation, but our younger son's altered looks and ways greatly disquieted us. In the last year he had evinced a growing disinclination to society and pleasure; his former liveliness, gayety, and love of jokes had been replaced by an obvious preference for solitude, and, as it seemed to us, melancholy brooding. To our anxious inquiries he had answered that he was nervous, and suffering from mental unrest and insomnia. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a way with her" that all of us men in Aureataland, old and young, rich and poor, were at her feet, or ready to be there on the least encouragement. She was, to my thinking, the very genius of health, beauty, and gayety; and she put the crowning touch to her charms by very openly and frankly soliciting and valuing the admiration she received. For, after all, it's only exceptional men who are attracted by difficile beauty; to most of us a gracious reception of our timid advances is the ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... trustee of church funds, politician and all-round man of the world—most of which he carried in a sling—seemed in a particularly happy frame of mind this morning judging from the buoyancy with which he stepped. This had communicated itself to the gayety of his attire, for he was dressed in a light-gray check suit, and wore a straw hat (the first to see the light of summer) with a green ribbon about the crown,—together with a white waistcoat and white spats, the whole ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back; cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a grandson, and often resumed his old place at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... conditions, and disposition are revealed by laughter! If a person gives audible expression to mirth, gayety, or good-humor, the simplest word to apply to what he does is laugh. But suppose a girl, with slight or insufficient provocation, engages in silly or foolish though perhaps involuntary laughter. We should say she giggles. Suppose a youngster is amused at an inappropriate moment and but partly ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... a run, the team following his lead. Hal cried "Whoa! whoa!" but they gave no heed. He tripped and was pulled off his feet. The capsized sled ground over him, and the dogs dashed on up the street, adding to the gayety of Skaguay as they scattered the remainder of the outfit along ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... the manifest design of the work, which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of the Age—we had almost said, of the hour—in which we live; exhibiting in the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion, Politics, Literature, Arts, and Social Life. Under all his gayety the Writer has an earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the manifold wants and tendencies of human nature, which is very rare among our popular authors. The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... trout-flies, quirts, ponchos, spurs, reels, and old felt hats. Some of the hats still have a few dejected flies fastened to the ribbon, melancholy hackles, sadly ruffled Royal Coachmen, and here and there the determined gayety of the Parmachene Belle. ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... few minutes had passed when she sought him there; but what a change had come over him! All his gayety had forsaken him, his face was pale, and his eyes, as he turned them upon ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... immediate neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young fold and there was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the beau monde—a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... her embroidered silk apron over a package of letters that lay in her lap, and affected an air of gayety at variance with her dim eyes ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... chattering, animated group clustered about the slim young chap who was fumbling with his tickets, glancing at his watch, signaling a porter for his bags, talking, laughing, trying to hide the pangs of departure under a cloak of gayety and badinage that deceived no one. Least of all did it deceive the two women who stood there. The eyes of the older woman never left his face. The eyes of the younger one seldom were raised to his, but she saw his every expression. Once Emma McChesney's eyes shifted ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... life of the college as in his classes. He joined the society known as the Knights of the Square Table, and at the lively meetings of the club, where wine and wit passed freely about the table, he was introduced to a kind of gayety undreamed of in his quiet home. In a humorous description of himself, given at this time in a letter to a former ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... see now that he got worse daily. He stopped his mockeries, his occasional fits of reckless gayety. He stopped poker—resolutely—he couldn't afford to lose now; and, what puzzled me, he stopped drinking. The man simply looked tired, always hopelessly tired; and I could believe him sincere in all his foolish talk ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... native purity, amiability, and generosity, which a life-long contact with slavery could not taint; his cordial scorn of Southern ideas; his fine and flawless instinct of honor; his warm-hearted courtesy and gentleness, and his gayety and wit; his love of his daughter and of mineralogy; his courage, modesty, and humanity,—these are the traits which recur in the differing situations with constant pleasure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... case just cited, and this harmonious effect at only after an infinite amount of petty squabbling and rebellion; but such unworthy skepticism is rebuked by my faithful Memory, who reminds me of the filial respect combined with girlish gayety and absence of all self-consciousness which forbade the idea for a moment that these young lives were regulated by harsh or compulsory discipline Still it was discipline, there could be no doubt of that, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... and gayety of my new friends made me soon feel at home and happy. The old people treated me like a child of the house, the young ones as a brother, and the two little ones seemed to anticipate a gingerbread-friend ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... Alec," he muttered. "You're too old a bird to lose your head." However, he was waiting for her before the time for their next dance. She seemed to have lost a part of her gayety. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... notwithstanding the confused and obscure manner in which they were delivered by the aspiring tradesman. His keen eye rolled quickly, and often, from the vessel to the countenance of his companion; but several moments elapsed before he saw fit to make any reply. The reckless gayety with which he had introduced himself, and which he had hitherto maintained in the discourse, was entirely superseded by a musing and abstracted air, which sufficiently proved, that, whatever levity he might betray ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... his adventure with great gayety of dress and manner, encountered Argalia, and was immediately tilted out of the saddle. He railed at fortune, to whom he laid all the fault; but his painful feelings were somewhat relieved by the kindness of Angelica, who, touched ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... his dinted steel cap showed that he was no holiday soldier, but one who was even now fresh from the wars. A white surcoat with the lion of St. George in red upon the centre covered his broad breast, while a sprig of new-plucked broom at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of gayety and grace ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to get away. She announced her intended departure at once to the family. She called it a visit to her old home, and she seemed very glad in her preparations. If there was anything forced in this gayety, no one noticed it, or at least, no one spoke of it. The family saw very little of Billy, indeed, these days. She said that she was busy; that she had packing to do. She stopped taking lessons of Cyril, and visited Bertram's studio only once during the whole three days ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of gayety, and good things to eat. The boys were so proud of their cooking that they disliked to let the conversation wander from that particular subject, and brought it back by some skilful remark whenever they thought the interest of the girls was flagging. Each club toasted the other, and Jack ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... knows nothing, and shall know nothing of it," said Julia, with a grand air. "Princess Anna shall only know that I love her, and am ready to give my life for her. And now," she continued, with her natural gayety, "forget me, ye happy lovers! Lull yourselves in the sweet enjoyment of nameless ecstasies! I go to watch the spies, and especially your husband, lest he break in upon ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... preoccupation with it, had somewhat unsettled him. He cleaned his pen obtrusively, going to the window for a better light, and whistling from time to time with a demonstrative carelessness and a depressing gayety. He once broke into a murmuring, meditative chant evidently referring to the previous conversation, in its—"That's so—Yer we go—Lessons the first, boys, Yo, heave O." The rollicking marine character of this refrain, despite ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... finally, after much protestation from the girls, but at the earnest solicitation of Mealy Jones, "post-office" started. Piggy did not urge, nor protest. He had gone through the games listlessly, occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was clearly hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference. For how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under his Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled human cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... many visits we made, was one on a gentleman then living in that house. As we entered, Mr. Corwin met an old well-trained negro servant who had been a servant of Mr. Webster in this house. I noticed that Mr. Corwin lost his usual gayety, and as we left the house he turned to us, and, with deep emotion, asked that we leave him at his lodgings, that his long associations with Mr. Webster, especially his meetings with him in that house during their association as members of the cabinet of Fillmore, unfitted him to enjoy ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... with fear; he cannot understand the flood he is pouring out—he dares not move—he believes he is lost. Gradually the fumes of the liquor pass away, and, his mistake being recognized, the drunkard is taken with a laughing and a gayety which are indicated by the same oath repeated in tones corresponding with the satisfaction he is then enjoying. This making the series of impressions a man passes through comprehensible by a single word, varied in pronunciation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... in that time many a gentle tie has been broken, and many friends separated, some of them forever. Among those we most loved and admired, we have to regret the long absence of one who was aye the delight of his friends, and who, if he were with us, would add such charms of wit and gayety to this little work that the young and the aged would pore ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... the unthinking creatures might design this torture kindly, and I would not punish the mistakes of ignorance. Do not dismiss them harshly—I would have them indulge their gayety, but I cannot bear to be a witness of it. Gaspard, this house is Melancholy's chosen home; and its devoted master's heart, like a night-bird that abhors the animating sun, has been so long familiarized to misery, it sickens and recoils ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... of all the year has come. The graduating ball takes place to-night. The Point is thronged with joyous visitors, and yet over all there hovers a shadow. In the midst of all this gayety and congratulation there hides a core of sorrow. Voices lower and soft eyes turn in sympathy when certain sad faces are seen. There is one subject on which the cadets simply refuse to talk, and there are two of the graduating class who do not appear at the hotel ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... him. He caught a glimpse of the "great gulf," that is ever "fixed" between the good and evil in their deepest consciousness. The "loneliness of guilt" chilled and oppressed him, even with the cheery, sympathetic companion at his side. But he hid his feelings under a forced gayety, in which Annie joined somewhat, though it gave her a vague shiver of pain. She felt they had been en rapport for a little while, but now a change had come, even as the damp and chill of approaching night were taking the place of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Luis, with forced gayety, as he thrust a hand under the arms of Tom and Harry. "Come, we will have our ride and our talk. We will be back here in half an hour and then we shall hear this affair ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... danced every dance with a gayety of manner that she did not truly feel. Some of the joy of that party was lacking, but she would not question the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... ladies are met together in a life of sumptuousness and gayety, a king is pretty sure to find favorites, and royal favorites rarely content themselves with pleasing the king; they desire to make their favor serviceable their family and their friends. Francis I. had made choice one, Frances de Foix, countess of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... provincial life could not suit this eagle, and in the course of a few years he came up to Paris. Alas! Monsieur Taxile Delord was soon obliged to add the secret sorrows of disappointed ambition to the original gayety of his character. His deepest sorrow was to look upon himself for a grave and thoughtful statesman, and be condemned by fate to a chronic state of fun and to hard labor at pun-making for life. Imagine Junius damned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... seemed to me that two currents moved almost as one, the hidden, dark part under—for there must be those in the town who knew the crime was murder; the murderer himself must still be here—and the foam of noisy gayety and blossoms riding atop. A Blossom Festival; the boyhood of the year; and I was in the midst of ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... Since your last letter I've been in a perfect whirl of gayety—dances, coaching parties and what-not. Really, you would say that I was nothing but a frivolous butterfly of fashion. Next week I am going to the Ver Planks' with quite a party and we are to coach through the Berkshires. The Judsons ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Keith's face, had grown very white; yet she managed to give a light laugh, and her voice matched Mazie's own for gayety. ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... and gayety that had marked the three from the moment of leaving home had gone. They were thoughtful, the very opposite in their mood to that ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... her, a slim, graceful thing, vibrant with the joy of living, smiling in sheer gayety of heart, and pretty as ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... of the family, as they bade good-by to her, throw any light on her confusion. They had all been at least once to the scene of gayety she was to visit, and as she tried to eat her breakfast they called out conflicting advice to her till her head whirled. Sophie told her to be sure and see the display of preserves. Her brother said not to miss inspecting the stock, her niece said the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... the intervals, the merry laugh is heard, wine is drunk, and the glee becomes general. Sparkling eyes are made more sparkling by strong drink; and, under the influence of multiplied potations, the coarse jest is now and then uttered. In this scene of gayety and mirth Charles Duran mingled,—a prominent actor. A young and inexperienced girl had accompanied him to the place. Round and round went the dance, and round and round went Charles's head. He was flush with money, and ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... them, the more they seem to have one element among them all, which is the reason that the most brilliant display of them soothes the observer, instead of exciting him. And I know not whether it be more a moral effect or a physical one, operating merely on the eye; but it is a pensive gayety, which causes a sigh often, and never a smile. We never fancy, for instance, that these gayly-clad trees might be changed into young damsels in holiday attire, and betake themselves to dancing on the plain. If they were to undergo such a transformation, they would surely arrange ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Perez. I can wrastle him. Don't fret about me," said Reuben, with attempted gayety, though his boyish lip quivered as he looked at his mother's face, noting how she did not meet his eye, lest she should lose her self-control, and not be ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... with a foreign air, exclaiming upon the beauties of nature on a Boston street corner in the French tongue, could not be an object of indifference. Eugenia's spirits rose. She surrendered herself to a certain tranquil gayety. If she had come to seek her fortune, it seemed to her that her fortune would be easy to find. There was a promise of it in the gorgeous purity of the western sky; there was an intimation in the mild, unimpertinent gaze of the passers of a ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... in the gayety of Blue Beard, according to his custom, is serious, pensive, and seems ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... woodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting out for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walk was a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlessly described the gayety of that scene—the splendid young fellows dancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipe their foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under the trees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... simplest way, the girls regretted unceasingly the luxuries and amusements of their former life; only the youngest tried to be brave and cheerful. She had been as sad as anyone when the misfortune first overtook her father, but, soon recovering her natural gayety, she set to work to make the best of things, to amuse her father and brothers as well as she could, and to try to persuade her sisters to join her in dancing and singing. But they would do nothing of the sort, and because she was not as doleful ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and strove to call attention to his gesticulating comrades on the upper deck; but he was deaf to both. Eagerly, anxiously, incredulously he was searching along that crowded rail, and all on a sudden he saw her. Yes, there she stood, all gayety, grace and animation, stylishly gowned and fairly burdened with roses; and it was right at him she was gazing, nodding, smiling, all sweetness, all confiding, trusting joy; with just a little of triumph, too, and a tinge of sentimental sorrow in the ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... confided to her his reasons for not going abroad; all she knew was that the summer was the merriest one she had ever spent. "I feel so young," little Lois said; and indeed she had caught a certain careless gayety from her almost daily companion, which did not belong to Ashurst. But she gave no thought to his reason for staying, though her father and Mrs. Dale did, and with ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Being who never forsakes those who put their trust in him. They sink into despondency, and, seeking to forget themselves, they bring upon their faculties the brutal stupor of intoxication, or they exhilarate them by its delirious gayety. Suicide is often the fearful issue. Dupin ascribes a hundred cases of suicide annually to the lottery system in the single city of Paris. Many years ago a lottery scheme, displaying splendid prizes, was formed ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... arrival of his child at Ashfield, and spoke in terms which were warm for him, of the interest which both his sister and himself felt in her welfare. "He was pained," he said, "to perceive that she spoke almost with gayety of serious things, and feared greatly that her keen relish for the beauties and delights of this sinful world, and her exuberant enjoyment of mere temporal blessings, would make it hard to wean her from them and to centre her desires upon the eternal world. But, my friend, all things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... my husband, but his nature was too austere to deal patiently with my freakish, petulant, volcanic temper; and when he lectured me for my frivolity, obstinacy plunged me into excesses of gayety, that at heart I did not enjoy. His mother and sister shunned me more and more, poisoned his mind with wicked and unfounded suspicions, and so we grew mutually distrustful. He tired of me, and he showed it. I loved ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... were merely going to Washington. Mr. Walraven had had a surfeit of Europe, and Washington, this sparkling winter weather, was at its gayest and best. The Walraven party, with plethoric purses, plunged into the midst of the gayety ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... where he had always seen some glimmering embers. There was no sign of life about the place; no dog barking, no sheep bleating, or fowls fluttering about the little farm-yard. All the innocent, joyous gayety of the place had vanished; yet he could see that it was not falling into decay; the thatch was in repair, the dark interior, dimly visible through the window, was as it used to be. It was not a ruin, but it was not a home. A home ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... words and soft boiled eggs,'" said Agatha, who had by this penance secured her own forgiveness and recovered her gayety. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely of what she did, and she had an ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... made one overture of quitting all his pretentions to that estate, on condition of submitting to be the Earl's vassall for the greatest part of it, and paying him two thousand pounds sterling, which he had then by him in ready money; but the expensive gayety of Sir John's temper made him unwilling to part with the money, and the name of a vassall suited as ill with his vanity, which occasioned that and several other proposals to be refused. However, as the generous Earl ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... no attempt made at any communism except that of intellectual and social gifts and privileges. There was a common table, and Mrs. Kirby has given us some attractive glimpses of the good feeling, and kindly gayety, and practical observance of the precept to "bear one another's burdens" which came into play around it. For many months, as no one could endure to have his equal serve him, and all were equals, there was a constant getting up and down ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... himself and continued—"as strenuously and unquestionably as he ought, he has greater reason than other men for gayety through his faith in a happier state of being than this. That's one of the reasons I use against myself when I think of leaving off laughing. Now, Miss Kenton," he concluded, "for such a close and slippery nature, I think I've been ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... discovers in them a softer nobility of mind and resolution, than in the deaths of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates himself; but Addison says, and we can not but think truly, "that if he was so well pleased with gayety of humor in a dying man, he might have found a much more noble instance of it in Sir Thomas More, who died upon a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which he suffered." What was pious ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... this obedience a great deal that is charming and sweet in daily intercourse. For him and for Madame de Maintenon the great and inexhaustible attraction of the Duchess of Burgundy was her gayety and unconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which this young princess, on coming as quite a child to France from the court of Savoy, had tact enough to introduce, and always maintain, amidst the most intimate familiarity. "In public, demure, respectful with the king, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were in the midst of our gayety, congratulating ourselves upon our prospects, we were basely betrayed by one of our own countrymen, whose name was Knowles. He had been a midshipman on board the Boston frigate, and was put on board the Fox when she was taken by the Hancock and Boston. What could have induced him ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge |
