"Laughter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sister's irony, went out on every such, occasion with perfect good will, and indulged in an uncontrollable fit of laughter at her ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... impossible, and her predestined Petrarch would never deliver his sonnets. Helen may be seen only against a background of Trojan wall. Gertrude must be tall and fair and ready with ballads in the winter twilight. Julia's reserve and discretion commend her to you; but she has a heart of laughter. Anne is to be found in the rose garden with clipping-shears and a basket. Hilda is a capable person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, and Celia is the ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... his comments and the loud laughter. Yet a few hours earlier these same half-drunken jesters had laid the man to rest with decent humanity. The boy was taking his first dose of Arizona. By no means was everybody looking at his jig. They had seen tenderfeet so often. There was a ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... gaiete de coeur[Fr], bon naturel[Fr]. liveliness &c. adj.; life, alacrity, vivacity, animation, allegresse[obs3]; jocundity, joviality, jollity; levity; jocularity &c. (wit) 842. mirth, merriment, hilarity, exhilaration; laughter &c. 838; merrymaking &c. (amusement) 840; heyday, rejoicing &c. 838; marriage bell. nepenthe, Euphrosyne[obs3], sweet forgetfulness. optimism &c. (hopefulness) 858; self complacency; hedonics[obs3], hedonism. V. be cheerful &c. adj.; have ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... retrieved the shame of his birth by signal deeds of valour; and their exceeding lustre is honoured with bright laudation by the memory of all succeeding time. For lamentation sometimes ends in laughter, and foul beginnings pass to fair issues. So that the father's fault, though criminal, was fortunate, being afterwards atoned for by a son of ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... bursting of a world, whereupon all that restless sea of shadows, and their bright abode, vanished suddenly; and there ensued a flood of darkness, peopled with shoaling fears, and I heard the approach of hurrying sounds, with demoniac laughter, and shouts coming as for me, nearer and louder, saying, 'Cast out! Cast out!' and it rushed up to me like an unseen army, and I fled for life before it, until I came to the extreme edge of that spiritual world, where, as I ran looking backwards for ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... rattle of wheels—that meant there was no more snow in the streets. The lieutenant looked at the sunbeam, at the familiar furniture and the door, and his first inclination was to laugh. His chest and stomach trembled with a sweet, happy, tickling laughter. From head to foot his whole body was filled with a feeling of infinite happiness, like that which the first man must have felt when he stood erect and beheld the world for the first time. Klimov ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... And laughter-loving Venus answered, "Proud Diomed, the son of Tydeus, wounded me because I was bearing my dear son Aeneas, whom I love best of all mankind, out of the fight. The war is no longer one between Trojans and Achaeans, for the Danaans have now taken ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... that my wife distributes patronage—" he heard himself repeating inanely, and the walls seemed to reverberate with the laughter which his sister and Gregg had suppressed. He heard Ella rise from the sofa and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... almost every critic in England exploded with laughter over the poetry of Tennyson. Yet his poetry has exactly the same characteristics now that it had then; and Tennyson has gone up to his place among English poets. It is not "Blackwood," nor any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... were her favorite traveling companions. "I am well satisfied to be a substance that thinks and reads," she says, finding her good uncle a trifle dull for a compagnon de voyage. Her tastes were catholic. She read Astree with delight, loved Petrarch, Ariosto, and Montaigne; Rabelais made her "die of laughter," she found Plutarch admirable, enjoyed Tacitus as keenly as did Mme. Roland a century later, read Josephus and Lucian, dipped into the history of the crusades and of the iconoclasts, of the holy fathers and of the saints. She preferred the history of France to that of Rome because she ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... two weeks in Arsene's bed!" cried the little one, with a peal of laughter. "Great lazy thing! if she had taken the trouble to make her bed ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... good-humored laughter above, and a look of amazement on Ensign White's face until the two buoys, attached to lines, were thrown down over ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... With the saying, Edward Gilder roared Gargantuan laughter. In the burst of merriment, his pent feelings found their vent. He was still chuckling when he spoke, sage from much experience of ocean travel. "Poker on the ship, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust; but still she was not allowed to be at ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... book though now, you must just pitch it out of window and say, 'Ho! all you jackasses, come and trample on it and trample it into mud, or go on till you are tired.'" He laughed heartily at this explosion. His laughter struck me—humour controlling his wrath and in a sense ABOVE it, as if the final word were by no means hatred or contempt, even for the jackass. " . . . No piece of news of late years has gladdened me like the victory of the Prussians ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... their husbands; these gentlemen were enslaved by the charm possessed by every woman who loves; and, with even supererogatory simplicity, afforded us that just sufficient spice of danger which increases pleasure. Ah! how quickly the wind swept away our talk and our happy laughter! ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... and a prima-donna, as clever as could be. He was evidently a born mime as well as a musician, and presently delighted us with some farmyard imitations, and one particularly quaint impersonation, "an old lady singing with false teeth," sent us into fits of laughter. ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... egg?" demanded Mrs Wade, with a burst of hearty laughter; for she laughed, as she did everything else, with all her might. "Is that all thou'st got by thy journey? Marry, but I would have tarried another day, and fetched two! Poor Father Pulleyne! so he's but to have one egg ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... then the demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and would trace on the street-wall a word which might serve as a pendant to the "Drink!" which was the only oracle obtainable from the heavenly bottle. This literary Trilby would often appear seated on piles of books, and with hooked fingers would point out with a grin of malice two yellow volumes ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... broke into a peal of laughter. And she exclaimed: I, Tarawali? Art thou stark mad? Or dost thou imagine Tarawali would come to people's doors? Ha! then, but as it seems, thy thoughts are already running on Tarawali. But let me come inside, for why should the whole street listen to our conversation? ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... lackey converted into a governor; a sailor or a deserter, transformed into a district magistrate, collector, or military commander of a populous province, without other counsellor than his own crude understanding, or any other guide than his passions. Such a metamorphosis would excite laughter in a comedy or farce; but, realized in the theatre of human life, it must give rise to sensations of a very different nature. Who is there that does not feel horror-struck, and tremble for the innocent, when he sees a being of this ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... stammered, and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his last intrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old Royal Almanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's ignorance, had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the only impatient word I ever heard from his lips: 'Do you wish our friend to hear you? I would rather never recover the power of this lost arm, than deprive his kind heart of the pleasure of his gift. And what of it? Yesterday, I did not care ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... is a grouse from Lord Northmoor's own moors, I presume,' replied Mr. Rollstone, to the tune of a peal of laughter from Herbert and exclamation—'Not know a grouse!'—for which Ida frowned ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... companions of the stage had been perhaps his best instructors in the art of moulding the will of the common man. He had the right address for every one; a grumble was met by a few kind words; a roar of laughter was awakened by a ready jest, and its recipient was the happier for the day. When help was wanted, his resources seemed boundless; yet he never gave as though he expected a return, and the idea of obligation was dismissed with a shrug and a smile.[1148] Sulla was not ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there was something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were continually straying to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities could be seen between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the songs and laughter that came faintly from the distance than on the feverish breathing and unintelligible ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Majesty's Government must have been in a state of complete panic, because on the 28th they made application to France, which is answered in a few hours by Lord Cowley: 'I said Her Majesty's Government were most sincerely anxious to——' (laughter). I wish really to be candid, not to misrepresent anything, and to put the case before the House without garbling any of the dispatches.—'I said that Her Majesty's Government were most sincerely anxious to act with the Imperial Government in this question.' ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... in the tarn are stirred, and there is audible a faint shriek and a ripple of laughter. A shrouded figure rises from the marsh, and, hastening by PHOEBUS through the darkness, is lost in the woods. It is followed closely by PAN, who, observing ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... groaning, 'Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my poor sister! Why didn't I obey you, mamma!' and so on. Just fancy, a man! Poor fellow!" she added, her tone changing. "It's enough to move a heart of stone." She held fast to the bedstead, not to be thrown into a corner like a splinter, and shook with laughter. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... with talk and laughter over what they might find at Orange Beach, the time passed until it was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... laughter, soft and low, Is as the chimes of silver bells,— That like sweet anthems float, and flow Through woodland ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... says), they could in no case forbear stealing; which, when I perceived, it did but minister to me occasion of laughter to see their simplicity, and I willed that they should not be hardly used, but that our company should be more diligent to keep their things, supposing it to be very hard in so short a time to make them know ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... invited; Blanche and I went; the laughs at the Hall were the loudest, so Mrs. Haughton remained. Isabel looked hopeful and happy, and an ideal Scotch lassie as she is. I am writing in the recess at the end of the library, and merry voices and gay laughter reach me here; but the sounds come not from any of my personal friends; none are with me as yet; we have Mrs. Meltonbury, the Fitz-Lowtons, two De Lancy girls, Peter Tedril, Everly, and Major Delrose at Rose Cottage—means Major Delrose ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... woman of charming vivacity, whose eyes were ever ready for laughter, and whose tone of address of itself provoked the noblest of replies. Many loved her; all admired. She passed (I will suppose) by this street or by that; she sat at table in such and such a house; Gainsborough painted her; and all that time ago there were men who had the luck ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... they searched round about it, and beat the fringing flowers that grew pretty high about the bottom of it, while I sometimes dived, and sometimes peeped up to take a view of my busy coxcomb, who had like to have made me burst into laughter many times to see his figure; the dashing of the stream, which continually fell from the little pipes above in the basin, hindered him from hearing the noise I might possibly have made by my swimming in it: after he had surveyed it round without-side, he took the torch in ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... genus. Sometimes, however, the sinner's will is directed to a thing containing a certain inordinateness, but which is not contrary to the love of God and one's neighbor, e.g. an idle word, excessive laughter, and so forth: and such sins are venial by reason ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Peapack was in its first glorious flush of young beauty. The green of everything dazzled under the sun. The woods were full of the echo of fairy laughter. Wild flowers ran riot among the fields. Delicate-footed May was following on the heels of April with its slight fingers full of added glory for ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the grief without knowledge, of the courage that may not avail, Of the longing that may not attain, of the love that shall never forget, More joy than the gladness of laughter thy voice hath amidst of its wail: More hope than of pleasure fulfilled amidst of thy blindness is set; More glorious than gaining of all thine unfaltering hand that shall fail: For what is the mark on thy brow but the brand that thy Brynhild ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... for a few moments, I shook with sobs. For a long time I knelt there, holding her hand; and surely it is the darkest hour I ever lived. Afterwards I stood by the open window and looked through the crevice of the curtain. The shouts, laughter, and cries of the two children had come up into the chamber from the open air, making a strange contrast with the death-bed scene. And now, through the crevice of the curtain, I saw my little Una of the golden locks, looking very beautiful, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... gave her a long hunt till she finally ran it to its lair, and it proved to be the shadow of a grotesque lead statue half hidden by a flowering shrub. Forgetting the hour and the open windows all around her, she burst into a rippling peal of laughter, which was interrupted by the appearance of a figure, imperfectly seen through the lattice-work which divided her balcony from the next one, and the sound of an ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... first of my advertisement, eh?" cried Waymark, with a sudden burst of loud laughter. "Queer ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... HENLEY'S books "followed hard upon" that of Richard Rawlinson's; and if the spirit of their owner could, from his "gilt tub," have witnessed the grimaces and jokes which marked the sale—with the distorted countenances and boisterous laughter which were to be seen on every side—how it must have writhed under the smart of general ridicule, or have groaned under the torture of contemptuous indignation! Peace to Henley's[384] vexed manes!—and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... at him very earnestly, and sought with their eyes for his face, which the ill-fashioned helmet concealed; but when they heard themselves called high-born damsels, they could not contain their laughter, which was so loud that Don Quixote was quite ashamed of them and rebuked them, saying: "Modesty is a comedy ornament of the beautiful, and too much laughter springing from trifles is great folly; but I do not tell you this to make you ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... than that of any other man of his times; and he possessed the faculty of adapting himself to his audience, and to the changing feelings of an audience, to a degree which few men ever attain. In a moment he could melt a popular audience to tears or convulse it with laughter. He could be plain or ornate, coarse or courteous. The eloquence of invective and vituperation was carried by O'Connell to a very inglorious perfection. His eulogies were as dextrous and expressive ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... joke. Vishinsky's laughter met with shock and anger from the people all over the world. And, as a result, Mr. Stalin's representative received orders to stop laughing and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... guns, he jokes as well As any Judge upon the Bench; Between the crash of shell and shell His laughter rings along the trench; He seems immensely tickled by a Projectile which ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... the older that one grows, Inclines us more to laugh than scold, tho' laughter Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. Beppo. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... April the secret committee produced their report. The document consisted of a tedious deduction of facts and cases, which concluded with a recommendation to the house to consider whether it might not yet be expedient that Millar should be taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. Roars of laughter followed this impotent conclusion, and Burke increased the merriment of the house, by observing that the secret committee might be compared to an assembly of mice, who came to a resolution that their old enemy ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... children to play about there. Little Eddie, a merry, willful boy of six years, disregarding all Willie's entreaties to come away, would amuse himself by "riding horseback," as he called it, on the railing of the frail bridge, and tossing up his arms with a shout of defiance and laughter, he lost his balance and fell into the water, quite deep enough to drown a ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... not come together again in the near future. He meant to forestall any breach of confidence on the part of Simmonds by writing a full explanation of events to Cynthia herself. If his harmless escapade were presented in its proper light, their next meeting should be fraught with laughter rather than reproaches; and then—well, then, he might urge a timid plea that his repute as a careful pilot during those three memorable days was no bad ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... female eyes. 65 The thundering tube the aged angler hears, And swells the groaning torrent with his tears. From Bruno's forest screams the frighted jay, And slow th' insulted eagle wheels away. The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock, 70 By [D] angels planted on the aereal rock. The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath Along the mystic streams of [E] Life and Death. Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds Portentous, thro' her ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... which Love, the worker of miracles, had built himself even under that tumultuous roof. Strollers in the halls or along the breezy verandas often paused to listen to the music of instrument or voice which came floating out from these sequestered rooms. Frequent laughter and the murmur of conversation proved that ennui was unknown, and a touch of romance inevitably enhanced the interest wakened by the beautiful young pair, always together, always happy, never weary of the dolce far ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... shoulders. Her pretty round plump little breast was white as the lilies in the grass without, and in this blooming time of her little life, Bebee, in her way, was beautiful as a peach-bloom is beautiful, and her innocent, courageous, happy eyes had dreams in them underneath their laughter, dreams that went farther than the green woods of Laeken, farther even than ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... But, not to be outdone, and thinking to turn the gathering against O'Connell, his adversary called out, "Take off your wig, and I'll warrant that you'll prove the uglier." The witty Irishman immediately responded, amidst roars of laughter from the crowd, by snatching the wig from off his own head and exposing to view a bald pate, destitute of a single hair. The relative question of beauty was scarcely settled by this amusing rejoinder, but the laugh was certainly ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... shedding human blood. He seems to have no heart, and his countenance is like adamant, for it gives no clue to the thoughts which fill his brain. He is certainly a very remarkable character and one worth studying. His early history is laughable. His various descents upon France were too ridiculous for laughter, and they only excited the pity of the world. His private conduct, too, was such as to disgust moral people. There seems to have come over the man a great change about the time of the Louis Phillippe revolution. I well remember that in the spring of 1848 I saw him ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... those bats! They bothered me almost as much as the whizz bangs had done, earlier in the day! They swished suddenly out of the darkness against my face, and I would start back, and hear a ripple of laughter run through that unseen audience of mine. Aye, it was verra funny for them, but I did not like that part of it a bit! No man likes to have a bat touch his skin. And I had to duck quickly to evade those winged cousins of the mouse—and then hear a soft ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... wherein he flow'd with that Facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopp'd: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His Wit was in his own Power, would the Rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape Laughter; as when he said in the Person of Caesar, one speaking ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... popular Assembly in the height of civil conflict, they were as oil poured upon the flames. Leopold ruined the party which he meant to reinforce; he threw the nation into the arms of those whom he attacked. His despatch was received in the Assembly with alternate murmurs and bursts of laughter; in the clubs it excited a wild outburst of rage. The exchange of diplomatic notes continued for a few weeks more; but the real answer of France to Austria was the "Marseillaise," composed at Strasburg almost simultaneously with Kaunitz' attack upon ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... to see him—to meet one we had never expected to encounter again in such excellent plight. Any one who could have seen him sitting in that apartment of the Bishop's Palace, his face swollen, and, with a gravity of countenance, which would have been ludicrous, even to the causing of laughter, had it not been for his own precarious situation, and the heart-rending scenes around, would have been equally as much astonished and rejoiced, as we were, on ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... caught up Sebastian by the arm and jumped on to the tail-board of the cart. And thus—enveloped in a cloud of dust, surrounded by the laughter of fun-loving men and youths—the boy came into Erfurt, to the great festival of all ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... Albert exclaimed, indignantly, while Edgar burst into laughter; "why, she is well-nigh as big as her mother already, and promises to be far bigger. Thank you, Aline; if the castle and estate had been offered me on the condition that I married her, I would ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... summer morning air rose laughter from the youths and maidens coming in afoot. Sounded the cries of the teamsters, the barking of dogs, the mingled murmur of speech—English speech again; and the fresh wind, bearing away a fine, golden dust from the long roads, swayed ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... wandering, savage hordes, its brandished spears and flashing Slavic helms, its marvelous parade of warrior pride and woman's flesh, its evocation of the times of the Tartar inundations, is full of a rude, chivalric lustiness, a great barbaric zest and appetite, a childlike laughter. The B-minor symphony makes us feel as though the very pagan joy and vigor that had once informed the assemblies and jousts and feasting of the boyartry of medieval Russia, and made the guzli and bamboo flute to sound, had waked again in Borodin; and in this magnificent and lumbering ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... to go down to see their men. They were guided to their rooms by sounds of music and uproarious laughter. They found Le Duc seated on a three-legged stool on the top of a table fiddling away, while old Francois, three black women, Tom and Brown, were dancing in the strangest possible fashion, whirling ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... the he was very hungry! He had lunched at Cadogan Square at a quarter to two, but he had felt too inwardly excited in that queer atmosphere of tears and laughter, of trousseau ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... hall—then there was a dull thud, as he too, forgetting the weightlessness, jumped and hit the ceiling. Then the cries were gone, like the snuffing of a candle. From the control room there rose loud laughter—and a moment later they felt more normal, as they again saw the four strong ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... quickness and epigrammatic turn of expression are best seen. Two disputants will, when in good-humor and warmed with wine, string off verse after verse at each other's expense, full of point and fun,—the guitar burring along in the intervals, and a chorus of laughter saluting every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... to mistakes, and with frank and proper exultation pointed out the gradual improvement and the triumphant result. Plenty of good stories and much hearty laughter came in among the more tragic episodes. We saw John Fiske take it all in, swaying in his chair ponderously back and forth, but the War in the Mississippi Valley, which came out soon after, showed that his memory retained every point. On another occasion, as Sherman on a stormy night took me home ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... simple enough," answered Deede Dawson. "Though I can tell you it took some working out. But the simplest problem is always the best, whether in life or in chess." Again he indulged in a low and guarded outburst of his thin, mirthless laughter before he continued: "I suppose you know Rupert Dunsmore is one of those restless people who are never content except when wandering about in some out of the way place or another, as often as not no one having the least idea of his whereabouts. Then he turns up unexpectedly, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... into Ducklow's old mare? She's running away with him! Who ever heard of such a thing!" And Atkins, watching the ludicrous spectacle from his field, became almost as weak from laughter as Ducklow was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... rather shocked him. He was too much of a gentleman to wish to spy upon the girl he had promised to marry. However, in my case, there need be no such scruples. I found the house and asked for Miss Montague. As I mounted the stairs to the drawing-room floor, I heard a sound of voices—the murmur of laughter; idiotic guffaws, suppressed giggles, the masculine ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... half closed. She thought that she was meditating on the life that had gone on in this Imperial villa two thousand years ago: its banquets, its philosophers' disputes, its tragedies and comedies played here with tears and laughter. In reality ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... time of life!" said Mrs. Beverley; but the joke amused her, she wiped her eyes, and, as Irene had hoped and intended, stepped smiling into the waiting taxi, and left her old home with laughter ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... were about to float away in song. One or two, perhaps, stole a glance at the bystanders, to watch if their poetic absorption were observed. Others stood talking in groups, with a liveliness of expression, a ready smile, and a light, intellectual laughter, which showed how rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing ...
— The Hall of Fantasy (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nothing of the sort!" Gisela's voice cut through the ripples of laughter which always greeted Mimi's redundant slang. "You'll go back to Germany with me and do your part in putting an end to this war!" All but Heloise half arose, but she sat staring at that hard drawn face ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... name of Stefano whenever it occurred puzzled me not a little; and when, in the last scene, I came to the lines, "Is not this Stefano your drunken butler? Why, he's drunk now!" I was interrupted with such a universal shout of laughter that I couldn't help inquiring the cause of it; when Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, Dr. Hawtrey's brother and one of the masters, told me that Stephano was the nickname by which he was habitually designated among the lads, which sufficiently accounted ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... his own name. It came in to him out of the darkness, followed by a peal of laughter. Rapid steps sounded coming across the courtyard, and the sweat ran from Meeus's face and his stomach crawled as, with a bound across the veranda, a huge man framed himself in the doorway and ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... which they could enter; stops every hole of opportunity; crushes down every uprising instinct of cruelty and selfishness. And the wolves have disappeared; and our little world is a garden of peace and beauty, musical with laughter. ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... A burst of laughter from the young fry chorused his proposal; nevertheless, as Mr. Stanton was a man of decided genius, by help of much showing, and of strong arms and good will, the feat was at length accomplished in no unworkmanlike manner; and while the bread was put down to the fire to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... disposition had that same foreign jorobado, and yet he had much grace, much humour, and said occasionally to me such comical things, that I was fit to die of laughter. So he sat down to supper in the room above, and I may as well tell you here, that he slept in the same chamber where your worship will sleep to-night, and his servant waited behind his chair. Well, I had curiosity, so I sat myself down at the table too, without asking leave. Why should I? I was ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... in the seat of the scornful the somewhat lyrical idea of an examination in joy as a basis of admission to the typical college appeals as a fit subject of laughter. So it is. Having admitted the laugh, the question is,—all human life is questioning the college to-day,—which way shall ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... truculence, with the little out-thrust of the underlip, brought, as so often before and since, laughter and applause. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... my last—maybe—[laughter]—but for the Union it is only the first of such reports in our third century of independence, the close of which none of us will ever see. We can be confident, however, that 100 years from now a freely elected President will come ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... metropolis.' They think—very naturally, as it seems to me—that when you take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little American girl, there is serious cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation by scornful laughter, and his companion continued, after a pause: "I said just now I didn't want to know anything about the affair; but I will confess that I am curious to learn whether you propose to marry Miss ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... over toe—cut and shuffle—pay away at it, Zephyr! I'm smothered if the opera house isn't your proper hemisphere. Keep it up! Hooray!' These expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused Mr. Pickwick from one of those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to the sleeper to have been protracted for three ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... they set forth on the return journey. Lord Stafford seemed to have thrown aside the weight of misgiving that had oppressed him on his way thither, and was full of the gayest spirits. With laughter and story did he beguile the way, and once as he jestingly spoke of her attire, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... hunched up on the root of his tree like a small toad of fidelity! The little owl sprite in him never quite slumbers, I think; and seeing me leave the parsonage, he had crept out and followed bravely after through the shadows. But the picture he made now startled me into a peal of laughter. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... time, and so did my mother before me—she was known far and near!" I had no occasion to remark on the silly dupes on whom they practised these impositions, for the whole party expressed their sentiments by bursts of laughter while the old woman was speaking: but I could not help exclaiming, that I thought she ought to make the fools pay well who gave credit to her prophecies.—"Aye," said she, "I see you don't believe in our art—but we tell all by the hand!"—I felt of course that ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... look of consternation, had observed the sulky, penetrating look of the bear-leader's eye, and he knew that he was stumbling upon a story. Her eye met his, then swiftly turned away. When her look came to his face again it was filled with defiant laughter, and a hot brilliancy showed where the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... family gets over any little disappointment such as bad weather," observed the old gentleman, with pride. "Well, come this way, the principal object of interest is in Jasper's den; no need to announce it"—as the peals of laughter and chatter ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... which brought both armies from their tents, the huge tube reared up on its mountings and toppled backwards into the pit. A howitzer lurked beside it, and this also was blown into ruin. The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the exultant captors, who reached the town amid shoutings and laughter with the first break of day. One man wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price for the best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war. Secrecy in conception, vigour in execution—they are the root ideas of the soldier's craft. So easily was the enterprise carried ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of laughter which came from his parents. Both keenly relished the joke, and when Ned learned that what he had done could easily be undone, he felt so much relieved as to be ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... then, struck by the comic aspect of the situation, with the waves breaking over us and the elements in mad turmoil around us, while the fat old chief was blubbering there like a boy about his gudgeon pin as if bewailing some toy that had been taken from him, that he burst out with a roar of laughter, which was so contagious that, in spite of the gloomy outlook and our perilous surroundings, Mr Fosset and all of us on the bridge joined in, even the quartermaster not being able to prevent a grin from stealing over his crusty weatherbeaten face, though the man at the wheel on board ship, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... of a clearing, they perceived a melancholy-looking savage in war-paint and moccasins seated by the side of a stream watching a colony of beavers busily engaged in making a dam. Duncan was about to fire, but Hawk-eye, roaring with laughter, stayed his arm. The savage ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... intimate friend of Mr. Huger, dining with the family, asked for rice when the fish was served he was first met with a chill silence. Thinking that he had not been heard, he repeated the request. Jack bent and whispered to him. With a burst of laughter, the captain said, "Judge, you have a treasure. Jack has saved me from disgrace, from exposing my ignorance. He whispered, 'That would not do, sir; we never eats ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... The old man never enjoyed his pipe so much as when it was filled and lighted by the deft fingers of his fair matron daughter. In after years these visits were made not unattended. Children's happy laughter filled the old house with glee, and strange riot ruled in the long-quiet parlour and great wide hall and echoing stairs. Another sturdy Neville, and little Kate, and baby Zenas began to play their parts in the momentous and often tragic drama of life. The old man seemed to renew his youth in ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... Again her laughter overwhelmed her; but it was not shared by Dick, who stood above her on the slope, frowning in perplexity, thinking of the strange blunder into which he had been led by the words of poor old Bells, his acceptance of her identity, his ignorance that Bully Presby ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... see, a maiden fair Accompanies the rower, and the sound Of merriment and laughter on the air Arises, softly echoing around. And all seem bright and happy, and have one To keep them ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... while General W., Captain G., and ourself are ranged, "all in a row," on bags of straw placed upon the floor. Of the merriment, prolonged far into the night, and making the house resound with peals of laughter,—not at all to the benefit, we fear, of several wounded officers in a neighboring room,—we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Colonel Dearman's wife and to Colonel Dearman's Corps. On hearing of the first, Captain Ross-Ellison showed his teeth in a wolfish and ugly manner, and, on hearing of the second, propounded a scheme of vengeance that made Colonel Dearman grin and then burst into a roar of laughter. He bade Captain Ross-Ellison dine with him and elaborate details ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Belvidero was giving a banquet to a prince of the house of Este. A banquet in those times was a marvelous spectacle which only royal wealth or the power of a mightly [sic] lord could furnish forth. Seated about a table lit up with perfumed tapers, seven laughter-loving women were interchanging sweet talk. The white marble of the noble works of art about them stood out against the red stucco walls, and made strong contrasts with the rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glittering with gold, and covered with gems less brilliant than their eyes, each ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... the senora in dismay, and down went the head of the senorita to hide how she was biting the laughter from her lips. "I ran," she murmured pathetically, "and I caught Angelo—but at that moment he popped the cake into his mouth and it was gone! Then I ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... least surprised of the trio, and even he had not more than begun to suspect the true state of affairs when the light was turned on. He doubled up with laughter, for it was really comical to see how eagerly Moses was delving into his oat supply, as though he feared he was now about to be divorced from his feast, and retired in disgrace, wherefore he wished to gobble all he could while ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... uncertainly as a chorus of raucous laughter came to his ears. He glared belligerently at a group of newcomers who stood aloof from his own gathering. Seven or eight of them there were, and they wore the gray with obvious discomfort. Slummers! Well, they'd hear ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gesture and verses ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... "Novum Organum," as often happens, was received by the majority of readers of his time with laughter and ridicule. Coke wrote on the title-page of a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... getting thoroughly ducked. My attention was sufficiently occupied in obeying my orders, and keeping my eye on him in expectation of fresh ones. The wind meanwhile increased from minute to minute, and I could not help perceiving that Hamilton, despite his cheery laughter, was becoming a little anxious. We got back, however, to the shore we had left after a good buffeting, and in the condition of drowned rats. My mother was helped out of the boat, and while she was making ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... pressure. The capture therefore was balm to their spirits, and an English correspondent, Mr. Philip Gibbs, who had accompanied the British on their previous advance, found officers and men full of laughter and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... he could hear her occasional laughter and the murmur of her voice as she swung in the hammock at the corner of the house with Dr. Harpe. On his right, he heard the unceasing click of Grandmother Kunkel's needles as they flew in and out upon the top row of the woollen stocking that was never done. It was a pleasing ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Egyptian author cannot refrain from this characteristic polissonnerie; and reading it out is always followed by a roar of laughter. Even serious writers like Al- Hariri do not, as I have noted, despise ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... of laughter greeted both the Arab's picturesque ascent and his murderous intentions, while an interpreter who stood near me told me I had ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... It did. The laughter faded from her eyes, her brow darkened. "I wish you had told me," she said, "then I'd been a little better prepared for Pop and Bob; but I guess they got as good as ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... laughter, shouts, good-natured jibes, little shrieks and giggles from the girls, and chuckles from the ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick |
