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Jollity

noun
1.
Feeling jolly and jovial and full of good humor.  Synonyms: jolliness, joviality.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Jollity" Quotes from Famous Books



... moment Ben Foster came running up. He was a manly-looking youth, and was lively and jolly as a rule. But now he was very sober-looking, for he realized that Dick, whose father had been captured by the Tories only the day before, was in no mood for jollity. There was an eager expression on Ben's face, however, and ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox

... sisters,—'our dear girls', as he calls them in a letter to the absent Korner,—had likewise quartered themselves in Gohlis; and so had Dr. Albrecht and his wife, Sophie, the actress. These with one or two others were enough for converse and for jollity; and there were merry evenings, with wine and talk, and cards and skittles and nonsense. Though ordinarily he 'joked wi' difficulty', Schiller could be jovial enough in a company of congenial spirits. Nevertheless there was but little of the bohemian about him. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... husband was playing, and the Billabong contingent, who did not seem to mind the heat at all, had arrived full of most infectious high spirits, filling her house with a cheerful atmosphere of youth and jollity. Norah had at once succumbed to the charms of the baby, and as the baby seemed similarly impressed with Norah, it had been hard to remove him from her arms even for purposes of nourishment for either. She had quite seriously proposed to take him to the match, and had been a little grieved when ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... at his house there, when he had taken his glass too freely, and, being through his great complaisance too forward, in waiting on his guests at their departure, flushed as he was, he tumbled down stairs, and broke his neck, and so fell a martyr to jollity and civility.' ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... to prove that Hardy was not a pessimist. He is the father of the English school that refuse to be either deists or moralists, and, like them, pushes his stories to an end that is often bitter. His temperament is cast in that brooding, reflective mood that concerns itself less readily with jollity than with grief, and is therefore ever slanting toward pessimism. This, even his style indicates. Like the somber Hawthorne's, his style is brooding, adumbrative, rather than incisive or brilliant, and it often limps among the facts of his story like a man in pain. ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... before in a good bed; I was denied the resource of slumber; and there was nothing open for me but to pace the apartment, maintain the fire, and brood on my position. I compared yesterday and to-day—the safety, comfort, jollity, open-air exercise and pleasant roadside inns of the one, with the tedium, anxiety, and discomfort of the other. I remembered that I was in the hands of Fenn, who could not be more false—though he might be more vindictive—than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Then place the dire portent within the tow'r. Cassandra cried, and curs'd th' unhappy hour; Foretold our fate; but, by the god's decree, All heard, and none believ'd the prophecy. With branches we the fanes adorn, and waste, In jollity, the day ordain'd to be the last. Meantime the rapid heav'ns roll'd down the light, And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night; Our men, secure, nor guards nor sentries held, But easy sleep their weary limbs compell'd. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... Mr. du Maurier himself—that there does not seem quite as much fun and jollity in the world as when John Leech was alive; but that surely is only the wail of the middle-aged. Englishmen never were uproarious in their mirth, as Froissart once reminded us. But it is true that Punch does not indulge so much as once he did in ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... little gentleman, and all these accumulations that he could not get into his talk, he proposed to put away for the big volume of "Reminiscences" that was to round off his life. At last he was a mere conversational firework, crammed with latent wit and jollity, and ready to blaze and sparkle in fizzing style as soon as the light of social ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... lie near us, just heaving perceptibly, as if breathing before taking the high road. Outside it blows a very little, a warm, damp wind; there will be a roll in the Bay of Bengal and we will head into it, and the natives' jollity will change to moans. I should think the ship's boats in emergency could hold a sixth of them. I hear there are some 2500, the three decks are choked with them fore and aft. Our tiny saloon and cabins are right astern and to port and starboard, and forward of it, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... fields, of blooming rye on the hills, of the wild grape beside the woods, and of the sweet honeysuckle and the spiraea about the house. The first hot, moist days. The daisies and the buttercups; the songs of the birds, their first reckless jollity and love-making over; the full tender foliage of the trees; the bees swarming, and the air strung with resonant musical chords. The time of the sweetest and most, succulent grass, when the cows come home with aching udders. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... possession of the blousard. The gaping crowds of English and Americans who go to the disreputable Jardin Mabille and the like resorts in summer to gaze at what they imagine is a scene of French revelry, do not know that the cancan-dancer there is paid for his jollity. The men who dance at the Jardin Mabille are not there for revelry's sake: they are earning a few sous from the manager, who knows that he must do something to amuse his usual spectators—viz., the tourists—who go back to Manchester or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... fingers at one another in wrathful council, or running about in search of lost articles. The cure was there, keeping a restraint on his people. Clothes hung on spikes like rows of suicides in the weird light. Even fiddlers and jollity were not lacking. A heavier race would have come to blows in that strait enclosure, but these French and half-breeds, in danger of scalping if the Indians proved turbulent, dried their eyes after losses, and shook their legs ready for a dance at the ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his University man, who had very little on the whole to say for himself, Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as the failure in jollity. "You are a couple of ghosts after Joe and his belongings, you two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow. You don't expect me to hear that penny-whistle of yours," he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture of pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... birthday of one of the least known and least important instructors, and decided that it would be well to celebrate it. So he made the acquaintance of the instructor and invited him to a birthday dinner. A large and exultant company were the instructor's fellow guests at the St. Dunstan, and there was jollity that seemed out of drawing with the dominant lines of the guest of honor; yet the scope of the celebration was extended until it included the burning of much red fire and explosion of many noisy bombs at a late hour, as the instructor was making ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... from low to high estate, Rode through the street in pompous jollity, Caius, his poor familiar friend of late, Bespake him thus, "Sir, now you know not me," "'Tis likely, friend," quoth Priscus, "to be so, For at this time myself I ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... but their ladies either came with them or quickly followed them. "And when they are there they must be in the mode, have all the new fashions, buy all their clothes there, and go to plays, balls, and treats, where they get such a habit of jollity and a love to gaiety and pleasure, that nothing afterwards in the country will serve them , if ever they should fix their minds to live there again; but they must have all from London, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... none the less, Noble or priest, or Servant or master; But credit our jollity none the less.— ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... and my lord held the little lad on one side, and my lady coaxed him o' th' other. Ever and anon my lord would look from the babe to my lady, and then from my lady to the babe. And a smile just lifted the corners o' his mouth, as sometimes a wind will just stir the leaves ere shaking them as with jollity. I followed cautiously at some distance, and by-and-by his lordship said, "How was it that thou didst not know me, coz? Faith thou art shot up like a lily i' th' sun, but lilies are aye lilies, and leaving thee a lily, I find thee ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of no reason against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here, as elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he passed at once from roaring jollity to silence. For those who live on the fuddled borderland, who crawl home by the railings and maunder repentance in the morning, he had a biting contempt. A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was, in fact, as little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not strained his ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... guests. We turned out again into the grey snow-swept gloom, a curious Comus—not at all like Greeks, for we had neither torches in our hands nor rose-wreaths to suspend upon a lady's door-posts. And yet I could not refrain, at this supreme moment of jollity, in the zero temperature, amid my Grisons friends, from humming to myself verses from the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... not. Tiredly She sees the white blooms crushed, and smells The heavy scent. They chatter: "See! White Zira thinks of nothing else But the morn's jollity...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet

... term of mirth and pleasure Comes no more when once gone by, Let us prize life's only treasure, Blest with love and jollity. ...
— The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems • Alexander Pushkin and other authors

... dry off, same as the twins did," laughed Molly Breckenridge. Which he did, for the sun was warm and his plunge had been a brief one; and in fact this "little international episode," as Monty called it, but served to increase the jollity of ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... been for the Wachners, these two days of dual solitude with Chester would have been dreary indeed, but Madame Wachner was their companion on more than one long excursion and wherever Madame Wachner went there reigned a kind of jollity and ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... gifted folk shine in the conversation also in a way peculiar to them and which was fully shared by Mrs Thomas Stevenson, who made the most charming of hostesses. Father and son on these occasions were simply full of jests and jollity, everything started an argument, and every argument lent itself to fun. It is odd that nothing definite of those clever sayings of theirs seems to return to one; it is only, as it were, the memory ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... wit would lag, and the mirth would lack, And the god of jollity hear no call, And the prosperous broadcloth on my back Hung over ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... was a slavish life. All she did, and all she left undone, she looked at with sad-hearted reference to the great object of her life. Far away she put all allurement to tempting, youthful joy. What had she to do with merriment and jollity, while a sin remained unexpiated, or a moment of her father's suffering and sorrow ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... fast becoming skeletonized, and the good company was fast becoming the reverse. The jollity was increasing and the serious intentions of Mr. Tripple were impending and ready to fall into open profession on the slightest encouragement. The Little Scout's pinched and pale face—sweet and uncomplaining, even through hunger and want—smiled gently and less sadly as it leaned ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... deacon at a dance, Or catch a curate at some mild frivolity, He sought by open censure to enhance Their dread of joining harmless social jollity. Yet he enjoyed (a fact of notoriety) The ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... been clinging with suffocating affection to earth and sea, putting an end to outdoor sport and indoor comfort, taking the curl out of hair, the starch out of dresses, the sweetness out of dispositions, and hanging like a pall over all efforts at jollity. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... has almost ceased to be the harbinger of mirth and jollity; and the gambols of our forefathers are nearly forgotten amidst the high notions of modern refinement. Time was when king, lords, and commons hailed May-day morning with delight, and bowed homage to her fair and brilliant queen. West end and city folks united in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various

... succinctly manned by the captain, the driver, and the cook, a fiery- haired lady of imperfect temper; and the cabin, which I explore, is plainly furnished with a cook-stove and a flask of whiskey. Nothing but profane language is allowed on board; and so, in a life of wicked jollity and ease, we glide imperceptibly down the canal, unvexed by the far-off future ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... 3/8 or 3/4 metre and beginning on the first beat of the measure. By Haydn the character of the Minuet was considerably changed; the tempo becomes much faster, the music begins on the third beat of the measure instead of the first and the mood is one of playful humor—at times even of downright jollity. In the Minuets of Mozart the peculiar characteristics are grace and tenderness rather than rollicking fun, e.g., the charming examples in the E-flat major and G minor Symphonies. Concerning the transformation by Beethoven of the Minuet into ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... rose bright and glad, looking as if it would make up for its father's wildness by a gentler treatment of the world. The wind was still high, but the hate seemed to have gone out of it, and given place to a laborious jollity. It swept huge clouds over the sky, granting never a pause, never a respite of motion; but the sky was blue and the clouds were white, and the dungeon-vault of the world was broken up ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... in this world. Contentment and jollity are not cultivated as they should be. There are too many prematurely-wrinkled long and melancholy faces among us. There is too much swearing, sweating and slashing, fuming, foaming and fretting around ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... own property. We had a comfortable supper, and got into high spirits. I felt all my Toryism glow in this old capital of Staffordshire. I could have offered incense genio loci; and I indulged in libations of that ale, which Boniface, in The Beaux Stratagem, recommends with such an eloquent jollity. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... in tune with the actual jollity than either of her sisters, was warming to her most joyous mood. Her costume of thin white waist and worn serge skirt might have been considered deficient in a more formal assembly, but here it passed ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... voyagers, the narrow escapes, their strange expedients, and the fun and jollity when danger had passed, will make boys even unconscious of ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... personage than the captain himself, a veteran of seventeen, there was but one opinion—that this was the greatest frolic of their lives. To be sure, Jacob Poot had become rather short of breath during the last mile of two, and perhaps he felt ready for another nap, but there was enough jollity in him yet for a dozen. Even Carl Schummel, who had become very intimate with Ludwig during the excursion, forgot to be ill-natured. As for Peter, he was the happiest of the happy and had sung and whistled so joyously while ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... in spirit! No sooner was the fire crackling, the kettle singing, and the delicious odour of roasted ptarmigan tickling our nostrils, than disappointment gave way to hope and weariness to jollity. ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... asleep and snores at intervals with a nauseous rattle; smart young men, dressed fashionably, fling chance witticisms at the busy barmaids, and the nymphs answer with glib readiness. This is the home of Jollity and Good-fellowship; this is the place from which Care is banished; this is the happy corner where the social glass is dispensed. Alas for the jollity and the sociability and all the rest of it! Force yourself to study ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... visitors, neighbours, soldiers, and courtiers,—the knights challengers, and the knights assailants, and the fine scenes at the pine-tree; the barrier in the meadow of the Thorn; and the horse-combat at the carrefour; and the jousts in the foret devoyable; the carousals in the castle halls; the jollity of the banquet tables; the morescoes danced till they were reminded "how the waning night grew old!"—in a word, when the costly dream had vanished,—that he was a ruined man for ever, by immortalising his name in one grand chivalric festival! The Sieur de Sandricourt, like a great ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... festival, the rejoicing at the renewal of the earth in the genial springtide. At the vernal equinox the sun is increasing in power, the world is astir with new life, and begins to reassume its mantle of green. Such a time inspired jollity in the human breast. It was commemorated with feast and dance and song. Perhaps it will be so again, even in sombre England, when the gloom of your ascetic creed has lifted and disappeared. Meanwhile I, as a "heathen man and a sinner," will imitate as ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... the whole family sat down by the blazing "ha' ingle," and upon no pretence whatever could any of the inmates leave the house after night. This was a circumstance that was not altogether to Thomas's liking. He had heard other ploughboys with rapture recount scenes of rustic jollity, which had fallen in their way, while out on nocturnal visits to the fair daughters or servant girls of the neighbouring farmers—scenes of which he was practically ignorant. And more—he had become acquainted with a young woman he had met at Maybole Fair; and having promised to call upon her at ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various

... the slipper," "Come, Philander," and other lively games soon set every one bubbling over with jollity, and when Eph struck up "Money Musk" on his fiddle, old and young fell into their places for a dance. All down the long kitchen they stood, Mr. and Mrs. Bassett at the top, the twins at the bottom, and then away they went, heeling and toeing, cutting pigeon-wings, and taking ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... back to his recollection. He had slept by a fire with a stranger, and next day the stranger, who carried a fir staff, had received him as his guest. He had dined with him and had drunk a good deal; in short, he had spent a few days in jollity and carousal. But now it was the height of summer all around him; there must be magic in it all. When he stood up, he found that he was close by the ashes of an extinguished fire, which shone wonderfully in the sun. But ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... constant cheerfulness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; some so cheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. Some are ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... to an inn in one of the suburbs, and spend, as he said triumphantly, "a day of blessed debauch!" Innocent enough, for the most part, the debauch was, consisting in cracking jests, stringing puns, a fish dinner, perhaps, and an extra bottle or two of fiery port. Sometimes this jollity, which was always loud and uproarious, found its scene in one of the cider-cellars or midnight taverns; but Ardworth's labours on the Press made that latter dissipation extremely rare. These relaxations were ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the entire mood of the solitary man is likely to be a sobered and subdued one. Even if hopeful and content, he will never be in high spirits. The highest degree in the scale he will ever reach, may be that of quiet lightheartedness; and that will come seldom. Jollity, or exhilaration, is entirely a social thing. I do not believe that even Sydney Smith could have got into one of his rollicking veins when alone. He enjoyed his own jokes, and laughed at them with extraordinary zest; but he enjoyed them because ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... stranger in her own hall. She spoke to her son-in-law, counselling him to send Frene from his house, and to find her an honest man for her husband. Thus there would be quittance between them. Very splendid was the feast. Whilst all was mirth and jollity, the damsel visited the chambers, to see that each was ordered to her lord's pleasure. She hid the torment in her heart, and seemed neither troubled nor downcast. She compassed the bride with every fair observance, and waited upon her ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... traveller smiled back in return. "Similia similibus,"—he believed in homoeopathy. Puns, horse-laugh, monkish face, skin of a friar, true Rabelaisian exterior, clothing, body, mind, and features, all pulled together to put a devil-may-care jollity into every inch of his person. Free-handed and easy-going, he might be recognized at once as the favorite of grisettes, the man who jumps lightly to the top of a stage-coach, gives a hand to the timid lady who fears to step down, jokes with the postillion about his neckerchief and contrives ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... table, after which they regaled themselves with good old October or cyder. The day and night were always passed with the greatest hilarity, and I was never completely satisfied, unless I was an eye-witness that there was as much mirth and jollity amongst my old friends in the hall, as there was amongst my other friends in the dining and drawing rooms. To bring these poor old creatures together, and to make them once a year happy in each other's company, was to me a source ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... guardsman whose place in the ranks was next to Malchus, said to him. "I thought we should have had at least a month here before we set out. They say the city is as gay as Carthage; and as I have many friends here I have looked forward to a month of jollity before starting. Every night when I lay down on the hard planks of the deck I have consoled myself with the thought that a soft bed awaited me here; and now we have to take at once to the bare ground, with nothing but this skin strapped on the ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... But jollity revived in full vigor when the supper-tray was introduced; and to cap all merriment, Captain Ferguson dismissed us with The Laird of Cockpen. Lord and Lady Melville were to return to Melville Castle next {p.291} ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were, perforce, the extremely parsimonious habits which his poverty had hitherto impelled him to observe, and very frequently had little reunions at his own house, when wit and jollity reigned supreme-dampened a little, of course, by the occasional remembrance of the untoward and melancholy fate which impended over the nephew of the late lamented bosom ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... open with a scene of abandoned jollity; servants and slaves are invited to share in the universal revel; the school holidays begin; and all the place is alive with the bustle and fun of a great fair. Bargaining, peep-shows, conjuring, and the like fill up ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... opinion. It would have been impossible, without some knowledge of the history of the country, to have supposed that these people, or even their ancestors, had ever been oppressed. Gayety did not prevail, nor is there anywhere among the Danubian Slavs a tendency to the innocent and spontaneous jollity so common in some sections of Europe. The Servian takes life seriously. I was amused to see that each one of this numerous company of swineherds or farmers, who had evidently come in to Belgrade to market, drank his wine as if it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... joy and feast Midnight shout and revelry Tipsy dance and jollity Braid your locks with rosy twine Dropping odors dropping wine Rigor now is gone to bed And advice with scrupulous head Strict age and sour severity With their grave saws in slumber lie We that are of purer fire Imitate the starry quire Who in their nightly watching ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... supply. When they first arrived, our Northern outside man, after looking at their clothes of the Boston cut, remarked, "Hm. You'd better give that crowd some softer job than digging." But they did the work, and a whole lot more besides. For their grit and jollity, and above all their readiness to tackle and see through such side tasks as unloading and stowing away some three hundred tons of ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... had already elected to himself that office. Graham glimpsed the scene with quiet curious glances. The grand piano, under a low arch at the far-end of the room, was cunningly raised and placed as on and in a sounding board. All jollity and banter had ceased. Evidently, he thought, the Little Lady had a way with her and was accepted as a player of parts. And from this he was perversely ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... "what can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of my friends. I see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind restless and uneasy. I am unsatisfied with those pleasures which I seem most to court. I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself, and am only loud and merry to conceal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... asked him in a low voice, and he smiled with his eyes at her, though his face showed no great amount of jollity. "You're as solemn as though every railroad stock listed had dropped ten points just after you ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... lectures, at "commencements," and other prosperous and happy public entertainments, a certain gayety of manner may be in harmony with the occasion; but it should be under control, a smiling cheerfulness, not a free-and-easy jollity. Before the play, or the programme, begins, social conversation is usually allowable in quiet tones that do not disturb the surrounding people. A gentle hum of lively voices is not an unpleasant overture on such occasions. But the moment the orchestra begins, if at the theatre, or ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... and presently we met the merry company proceeding thither. First came a great rollicking posse of lads and lasses linked hand in hand, all crowned with flowers, and bearing green and blossomy boughs over shoulder. And these were so swift with the wild spirit and jollity of the day that they must needs come in advance, even before the horses which dragged the May-pole. Six of them there were, so bedecked with ribbons and green garlands that I marvelled they could see the road and were not wild with fear. But they seemed ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... the shore did not reply. They understood perfectly the uncertain temper of "larking" woodsmen. There had been cases in times past when a taunting word had turned rude jollity into sour hankering ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... will sit down and figure on it you won't laugh quite so hard," said Nick, amused by the jollity of his father, which brought a smile to his mother; ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... liveliest book about the War which has yet appeared. Whatever amusement can be extracted from a tragic theme will be found in his vivacious "Letters." He seems one of those high-spirited and versatile young men who notice the humorous side of everything, and can add to the jollity of a company by a story, a song, an "impromptu" poem, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... a solemn voice I heard through your gay-hearted noise; A solemn meaning and a stiller voice Sounds to me from far days when I too shall rejoice, Nor more be with your jollity at strife. O prophecy Of things that are, and are not, and shall be! The great-vanned Angel March Hath trumpeted His clangorous 'Sleep no more' to all the dead— Beat his strong vans o'er earth, and air, ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... fellow citizens stupidly tired of this Merry Andrew—they "sent him elsewhere to talk other folks to death"—to the State House, where he served several terms creditably, but was mainly the fund of jollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... perspiration on their faces caused them to shine like burnished copper. All at once one of them emitted a whoop and broke into a swift run, the rest instantly falling in behind him, and speeding with the same hilarious jollity. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... 'Good luck!' The trees showered kindly wishes, and hearty compliments danced from lip to lip. A spirit of irrepressible jollity laughed in the land. Drays, waggons, buggies, cabs, vehicles of all kinds, were pressed into the service of the adventurers. Four diggers went roaring by in a dilapidated landau that had seen vice-regal service in Hobart Town, driven by a fifth blackguard dressed in an old ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... poor Jock steadiness appeared renunciation of all "jest and youthful jollity," and religion seemed tedious endurance of what might be important, but, like everything important, was to him very wearisome and uninteresting. To him all zest and pleasure in life seemed extinguished, and he would have preferred leaving Eton, where he must change his habits and amaze his associates. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had continued to "wax fat," and now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her "Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard. Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament—she enjoyed the world, her friends and her creature comforts—her sound, innocent sleep—her ambling pony, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... hour arrived for relaxation. His expression, his very nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change. Gondremark at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... drinking saloons were nearly empty, and only a few sleepy-looking loafers hung about in what is called the street. It might have been Sunday; but they say that it brings a great accession of throng and jollity. Public worship has died out at present; work is discontinued on Sunday, but the day is given up to pleasure. Putting a minimum of indispensables into a bag, and slipping on my Hawaiian riding dress[3] over a silk skirt, and a dust cloak over ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... all excitement about the camping, which was to be the last jollity of their happy summer, and they asked so many questions about what they were to take with them, and they asked the same questions over so many times, that at last Mrs. Reece put her hands on her ears and called to the guide, who was ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody

... of all this jollity a change which none observed came over him. His laugh became less frequent than his shudder or his sigh, and taking Alley aside, he begged she would walk with him ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... chambers, some went scurrying for oysters before the post-office store should be closed, and some spread the news, eager to share in the holiday importance. I love to remember our certainty, so reasonably established, that they would all join us as infallibly as children will join in jollity. No one refused, no one hesitated; and when, at eight o'clock, the Topladys and I reached the rendezvous in the Engine-House entry, every one was there before us—save ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... will never, never be able to fill. That is why Mother weeps—it is her privilege. And, truth to tell, so many people would like to weep too, only they dare not—they dare not. So they throw themselves into the feverish jollity which Christmas seems to demand for the sake of the children, and for the sake of the young people who, because they were so young, will never realise the aftermath of loneliness which to-day elder people know meant war! So they say to themselves, "Let us eat and drink ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... full moment he and Elisabeth stared at each other in a silence so vital, so pregnant with some terrible significance, that it impacted upon the whole prevailing atmosphere of care-free jollity. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... the sea, beyond the drain, watched the gathering of this annual invasion with interested eyes, but without taking part in all its jollity. Let them enjoy themselves—if they were willing to pay for it! All that merry-making was the source of the Cabanal's pin-money, for the other seasons of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... soundly that night, in what was probably the best bedroom in the house, and awoke with a feeling that we were about to enter on a period of some uncommon kind of jollity, which we found to be true when we went down to get breakfest. I made the fire, Euphemia made the coffee, and Mrs. Carson came with cream and some fresh eggs. The good woman was in high spirits. She was evidently pleased at the idea of having neighbors, temporary though they were, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... the town, and a delightful surprise-party was got up among the artists of Rome. Twenty-five came driving over in a big carriage, with four gaily decorated horses, postilions, hampers of lunch, flutes and horns, and much jollity bottled up for ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... and son, On roastings from a royal fire. Two demigods, a son and sire, These parrots pension'd for their fun. Time tied the knot of love sincere: The sires grew to each other dear; The sons, in spite of their frivolity, Grew comrades boon, in joke and jollity; At mess they mated, hot or cool; Were fellow-scholars at a school. Which did the bird no little honour, since The boy, by king begotten, was a prince. By nature fond of birds, the prince, too, petted A sparrow, which delightfully coquetted. These rivals, both of unripe feather, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... definitely present in his sculptured form, even in particular parts of it,—in the swelling chest and tightened limbs. Or consider another case. Suppose I see Franz Hals' "Laughing Cavalier." I feel jollity in the face, as the cavalier's. Yet in both cases I may feel the emotions as also my own—as if I too were about to run or were laughing. And the projection of the idea of the self will occur most readily if I am myself a runner or a jolly person. In both instances, moreover, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... he and Tom were sitting. As the young bank employee had said, he had come away from the institution that afternoon to have a little holiday with his chum, but Tom, seated in the midst of his inventions, seemed little inclined to jollity. ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... now are. It was only at great houses, or on great occasions, that foreign drink was placed on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revellers were laid under ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... now, I guess," he said, with what was meant as an attempt at a grin. But his lips were pale, and his forced jollity was a dismal failure. As for his father, he made no attempt to ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... plots. During the club evening at least, they regain something of the ease of the man who is being estimated by the bushels per acre of potatoes he has raised, and not by that flimsy city judgment so often based upon store clothes. Their jollity and enthusiasm are unbounded, expressing itself in clog dances and rousing old songs often in sharp contrast to the overworked, worn ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... fatal story for him to remember and recount; for, after his companions were asleep, the vision of the Merrow and Jack hobnobbing, and the idea of the jollity of it, rose before him, and excited a thirst for joviality not ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... play comes the work, but the work may be made as interesting as the play and may proceed in the same spirit of jollity and freedom that marked the time given up wholly to amusement. The work is the second factor in the father's influence—something on the plane of the child's own mind, not too difficult, not too long continued. Closely related, too, it must be with things that the child ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... all these, for restful death I cry— As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... as a sacred pledge, His cause in combat the next day to try: 380 So been they parted both, with harts on edge To be aveng'd each on his enimy. That night they pas in joy and jollity, Feasting and courting both in bowre and hall; For Steward was excessive Gluttonie, 385 That of his plenty poured forth to all; Which doen, the Chamberlain Slowth did to rest ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... before the festival of Christmas, Stoner stood in a corner of the orchard which commanded a wide view of the countryside. Here and there he could see the twinkling dots of lamp or candle glow which told of human homes where the goodwill and jollity of the season held their sway. Behind him lay the grim, silent farm-house, where no one ever laughed, where even a quarrel would have seemed cheerful. As he turned to look at the long grey front of the gloom-shadowed building, a door opened and old George came hurriedly forth. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... have plenty of money, and he recalled the rich Englishman he had seen at the Cafe Paradiso, drinking champagne and buying flowers for the Hungarian woman who played the fiddle. The scene he had just left contrasted disagreeably with the fun and jollity that surrounded him. But he felt unable to shake off his gloom and annoyance, and Madam Marx's attentions irritated him. He felt that her eyes continually rested on him, that, however busy she might be, he was never out of her thoughts. Every few minutes she would come toward him with a ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... troops, and keeping both interest and fun in full blast till people laughed who had not laughed heartily for years; lungs got their fill for once, unsuspected muscles were suddenly developed, and, when the clock struck ten, all were bubbling over with that innocent jollity which makes youth worth possessing, and its memory the sunshine ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... thieves. They get on with the queerest makeshifts for self-respect: old Mr. Lind with family pride. Douglas with personal vanity, and Marmaduke with a sort of interest in his own appetites and his own jollity. Everything is a sham with them: they have drill and etiquet instead of manners, fashions instead of tastes, small talk instead of intercourse. Everything that is special to them as distinguished from workers is a sham: when you get down to the ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... the flight of Galatea under the willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked stockings, and that sort of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... day's work was over he felt fully prepared for the morrow's recitations. But he was in no mood for play. The quiet that had reigned through the building for the last two hours was suddenly broken in upon by sounds of mirth and jollity—merry boyish voices talking, singing, some accompanying themselves with the twang of a banjo or the tinkle of a guitar; but Max, closing and putting his book aside, kept his seat, his elbow on the desk, his head on his hand, while with a far-away ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... wondered that, circumstanced as they were, they had thus given way to a fit of jollity. But, indeed, there was nothing wonderful about it. On the contrary, it was perfectly natural—perfectly true to the instincts of the human soul—to be thus stirred: joy and sorrow following each other in periodic succession—as certainly as ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... spared the last trying moments. Bridgie and Esmeralda wrapped their arms round the little sister and almost carried her to the door; Pat and Miles followed with their hands in their pockets, putting on a great affectation of jollity in their anxiety to disguise a natural regret; the two women-servants wailed loudly from the staircase. Pixie scrambled to her seat and looked down at them, her poor little chin quivering ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the swan that singeth before her death, they in the Admiral, or Delight, continued in sounding of trumpets, with drums and fifes; also winding the cornets and hautboys, and in the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of doleful knells. Towards the evening also we caught in the Golden Hind a very mighty porpoise with harping iron, having first stricken divers of them, and brought away part of their flesh sticking upon the ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes

... fitting and tasteful uniforms; but they do like to show their handsome forms and hear their sword-scabbards rattle on the pavement as they stride by. The beer-gardens are full of the common soldiers, who empty no end of quart mugs in alternate pulls from the same earthen jug, with the utmost jollity and good fellowship. On the street, salutes between officers and men are perpetual, punctiliously given and returned,—the hand raised to the temple, and held there for a second. A young gallant, lounging down the Theatiner or the Maximilian ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... jollity was going forward. Tables were spread, and great preparations were making for the rustic feast. Some lads and lasses were dancing on the green before the house, while others of the young men were buying ribands, gloves, and such toys, of a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... life is not made up merely of fighting and study. There is a very jovial side to it, and if its jollity is sometimes made the subject of reproach this is due to the fact that the few thoroughly lazy students are of necessity the very ones who are most seen. It cannot be denied that beer plays a considerable part in the life of German ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... crush'd down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be formed upon them—are much nearer alike, than the world imagines;—the difference amongst them being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking notice of;—but that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and by which one nose ranks above another, and bears a higher price, is owing to the cartilaginous and muscular parts of it, into whose ducts and sinuses the blood and animal ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... century Major Macpherson and a party of friends went out to hunt on the Grampians between Athole and Badenoch. They were highly successful, and in the afternoon they went into a little bothy, and, having meat and drink, they abandoned themselves to jollity. ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... had been welcomed by the men, and the first few miles had been marked by jollity; the jest repeated growing from four to four; great shouts had risen, at seeing the dust made by our columns advancing on parallel roads. The air was stagnant, the sun directly in our faces. This little peaked infantry cap is a damnable outrage. The straps across my shoulders ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... thus. If the soldier's theory were correct, if she were indeed a poor love-lorn creature come to steal a last look at the unfortunate, she eked small comfort from her study of the cloud of humanity on the benches. Their jollity, their frequent laughter and hand-clapping reached her in her retreat. "Merciful God!" she kept crying. "Are these beings indeed in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... self-educated man like Franklin was so broad and liberal in all his views,—an impersonation of good nature and catholicity, ever open to new convictions, and respectful of opinions he did not share, provoking mirth and jollity, yet never disturbing the placidity of a social gathering by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... from Egypt, over an "underground railway made by the order of God himself," "instead of being in the domain of the miraculous, is under natural law." At Suez, one of the half-way houses of the world, he was amused at the jollity of the Mohammedans, who had just broken their long lenten fast from tobacco and smoke, and who were very happy in their ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis



Words linked to "Jollity" :   amiability, merriment, good humor, good humour, jolly, good temper, gaiety



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