"Gaiety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cintra: I am well and active, in better health than I have long known, and till to-day, in uninterrupted gaiety at heart. I am finishing the eleventh book of 'Thalaba' and shall certainly have written the last before this reaches you. My Bristol friends have neglected me. Danvers has not written, and Edith is without a line from ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the more ancient buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the schoolboys' windows: their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black gowns under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in his understanding and more gay in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish, overgrown schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He disdains his father for his close attention to business and love of money, though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit or generosity to make him superior to either. His chief ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... gaiety I coursed the plain, [6] And hope itself was all I knew of pain; For then, the inexperienced heart would beat [7] At times, while young Content forsook her seat, And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed, 25 Through passes yet unreached, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... destroy his superstition. He continued to believe that he would die violently at the end of his career as President. But he carried that belief almost with gaiety. He refused to take precautions for his safety. Long lonely rides in the dead of night; night walks with a single companion, were constant anxieties to his intimates. To the President, their fears were ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... a number of times, and it worked splendidly. "When filled with water, it would only add to the gaiety of ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... actresses lead gay lives! Could anything be more dull than the life of an actor in a repertory theatre? Daily rehearsals in a dingy and draughty theatre and nightly performances in half-rehearsed plays!... "Give me the life of a bank clerk for real gaiety," he murmured. "An actor's just a drudge ... and a dull drudge, too! Very uninteresting people, actors!... Why the devil ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... which is the common heritage of mankind. Thus, those who cannot bring themselves to accept the more austere definition of the term are willing to recognize as significant certain qualities which are not purely formal. They will recognize, for instance, the tragedy of Michael Angelo, the gaiety of Fra Angelico, the lyricism of Correggio, the gravity of Poussin, and the romance of Giorgione. They recognize them as pertaining, not to the subjects chosen, but to the mind and character of the artist. Such manifestations in line and colour of personality they admit as relevant; but they ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... latter is commonly more esteemed and adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The degree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... ignorant? It made Henri snigger indeed, remembering those days, now it seemed so long ago, when he and Jules had been among the elegants of the city. Yet, if these two young soldiers had known what luxury meant, and what it was to lead a life of gaiety, they were none the less good soldiers of France, destined to prove themselves, indeed, as noble as any of those comrades about them. Seated there on the fire-bench, where a man could stand and level his rifle in the direction ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... all based in human nature. For if you come to that, what novel has more human nature? not studied with the microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, with the natural eye? What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, and unflagging, admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, must sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But there is no style so untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a village ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said he, 'that you should not be less wise than a sailor lad; think no shame to be glad when your heart bids you, whatever sorrows lie before or behind you. And I'll keep you in countenance, whenever I see your fair mournful sister reproving your gaiety with her eyes; but you must do the same by me with my father and your aunt. Is it a bargain? strike hands ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... intoxicated eye of a lover who forgets the individual but keeps a glorified impression of her beauty, whereas Boucher's rosy-blue landscapes look as if he had never seen their originals. His world had nothing in common with Nature, and with reality only this, that its sensuousness, gaiety, falsity, and coquetry were true to the period. But in both Watteau and Boucher there was a faint glimmer of the idyllic—witness the dash of melancholy in Watteau's brightest pictures. Feeling for Nature was seeking its lost path—the path ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... he was bid, and the body of Colonel Belmont was laid out between the two rows of young people, whose gaiety had ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... reigning beauties of Carthage, and other similar topics, and Malchus, who was impressed with the serious nature of the secret conspiracy which he had just sworn to aid, could not help being surprised at the careless gaiety of the young men, although engaged in a conspiracy in which they ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... shrunken chests and wrinkled foreheads by squinting at the sun.... Even the women are tiny things with a perpetual smile that pushes up their high cheek bones into a horn-like prominence and apparently belies their apparent gaiety.... The belts of these men are perfect arsenals of curious-looking things.... With their cloth caps with ear flaps hanging down, their knee breeches and their linen shirts hung with a dozen prayer wheels, they ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... reformation nothing is recorded: his convivial friends are the chief eulogists of his character. His little white pony was not less celebrated. Mr. Knopwood received a pension, and was subsequently appointed chaplain to a country district: he died in 1838. The gaiety of his disposition made him a pleasant companion and a general favorite; and conciliated whatever esteem may be due to a non-professional reputation.[127] Mr. Knopwood was not, however, unwilling to tolerate the assistance ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... to be our third Christmas in Flanders. Is it any good trying to pass on the emotion common to men who go to that place because they must? No, it is not. Yet, throughout the journey to the boat, I was not astonished at the loud gaiety of many of our passengers. I have got used to it; for they were like that when they landed at Boulogne in August 1914; and they will be no different when they come back for good, to comfortable observers who prefer to ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... Foscari, unable to survive the agony of exile. In some we hear the shuddering spasms of suppressed sobs. Some of them, in which the black keys are exclusively taken, are acute and subtle, and remind us of the character of his own gaiety, lover of atticism as he was, subject only to the higher emotions, recoiling from all vulgar mirth, from coarse laughter, and from low enjoyments, as we do from those animals more abject than venomous, whose ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... acquitted itself with credit at a marriage, having no natural aptitude for gaiety, and being haunted with anxiety lest any "hicht" should end in a "howe," but the parish had a genius for funerals. It was long mentioned with a just sense of merit that an English undertaker, chancing on a "beerial" with us, had no limits ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... shining on the hot rock above Chinon, on the maze of narrow, climbing streets, on the high-pitched, gabled roofs, on the grey-blue tourelles, pricking upward from the fantastic labyrinth of walls. He heard the sound of sonorous plain-song from the monastic choir, of gross exuberant gaiety from the rich vineyards; he listened to the eternal mystic mirth of those that halted in the purple shadow of the sorbier by the white, steep road. The gracious and ornate chateaux on the Loire and the Vienne rose fair and shining to confront the incredible secrets ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade; and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran down my eyes over it—truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and dear Masters, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... chiefly to the censorship, the theatre is not respected. It is indulged and despised as a department of what is politely called gaiety. It is therefore not surprising that the majority of the Committee began by taking its work uppishly and carelessly. When it discovered that the contemporary drama, licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, included plays which could be described only behind closed doors, and in the discomfort which ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... of India, was on the way out. As a personal friend of the Prince of Wales it was fitting that they should meet at Suez, where the new Viceroy came on board. At Cairo, the Prince was welcomed by the Khedive and his suite and a new round of gaiety commenced, including visits to the Pyramids and a little quiet shooting. At Alexandria, on April 2nd the Prince entertained the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia at dinner on the Serapis. The next point touched was Malta, ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... it, my pet," said Madame Doulce. "We never enter more thoroughly into our parts than when we do so by main force, and in spite of ourselves. I could give you many examples. I myself, in La Vivandiere d'Austerlitz, staggered the house by my gaiety of tone, when I had just been informed that my Doulce, so great an artist and so good a husband, had had an epileptic fit in the orchestra at the Odeon, just as he was picking up ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... sight you would not suspect the black and brawny Koli of much gaiety, but there is deep down in him a spring of mirth and humour which, "when wine and free companions kindle him," can break out into the most boisterous hilarity and jocundity and even buffoonery, throwing aside all trammels of convention ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... it always is, but on this occasion there seemed to be more people than usual, and there was much gaiety in the neighborhood. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... declared himself to be a reporter, and not a judge, BAYLE, the discreet sceptic, could not long satisfy his readers. His panegyric was thought somewhat prodigal; his fluency of style somewhat too familiar; and others affected not to relish his gaiety. In his latter volumes, to still the clamour, he assumed the cold sobriety of an historian: and has bequeathed no mean legacy to the literary world, in thirty-six small volumes of criticism, closed in 1687. These were continued by Bernard, with inferior skill; and by Basnage more successfully, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of gaiety and foolishness, offered fresh terrors. For old Madame Carter had come down, and it occurred to Harriet that if Nina had seen anything in the wood, she might naturally interest her grandmother with an account of it. Nina rarely had so interesting a topic of ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... her hand and wondering at her high spirit of gaiety so sharply in contrast with her determined and domineering humour of a few hours since. "Why?" he asked, shutting ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... to recommend seriousness and attention, with the same zeal with which moderation and impartiality have already been inculcated. He that entirely disregards the question in debate, who thinks it too trivial for a serious discussion, and speaks upon it with the same superficial gaiety with which he would relate the change of a fashion, or the incidents of a ball, is not very likely, either to discover or propagate the truth; and is less to be pardoned, than he who is betrayed by passion into absurdities, as it is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... certainly in his later years led him to overdraw them. Many persons have believed that he could not live without society; a prolonged seclusion from it would, for obvious reasons, have been unsuited to him. But the excited gaiety which to the last he carried into every social gathering was often primarily the result of a moral and physical effort which his temperament prompted, but his strength could not always justify. Nature avenged herself in recurrent periods of exhaustion, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... hardly think of danger in the midst of so much mirth and gaiety, and yet, though unseen by us, the shadow of death was ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... forefingers, browned by the sun that shines in the desert. American business men, on holiday, smoked large cigars, and invited friends from New York, Boston, Washington to dinner. European boys, smartly dressed, full of life and gaiety, went eagerly up and down excitedly retailing experiences. And perpetually carriages drove up, set down, and departed, while a lean, beautifully clad Arab with grey hair noted hours, prices, numbers, in a ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... sigh of relief as she went upstairs. She was glad to escape the further questions concerning Mary which her mother seemed disposed to ask. Her gaiety had been evanescent and she now experienced a feeling of positive gloom as she entered her pretty room and prepared to bathe and dress for the evening. She could not resist a thrill of pleasure at the sheer beauty of the white chiffon frock spread out on her bed. She wondered if Mary would wear ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... friends that she should reject what they considered the proper "sphere" for women and choose to go out into life and devote herself to doing something that was worth while, rather than to fritter her time and energy away on the gaiety and inconsequentiality ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... was a trifling difference of opinion in the committee—the great object appeared to be, and the great difficulty at the same time, to find a place which would suit all parties, that is to say, a place where there were no politics, plenty of gaiety, and cheap peaches. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... has a greater influence on our lives than we are aware of. Statistics go to prove this; for instance, more marriages take place during the five months, June to September, than in the other seven colder months. From gaiety to despair,—more suicides take place at the fall of the year than at any other period. Rodent slaughter commenced this chapter and suicide ends it; this puts me in mind of the Marriage Service, which commences ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... her sweet voice called up from his soul's unfathomed depths. Often they walked together by the lake on a clear night; and on these little excursions, during which they were never beyond Rosendo's watchful eye, Jose reveled in the girl's airy gaiety and the spontaneous flow of her sparkling thought. He called her his domestic sunbeam; but in his serious moments—and they were many—he studied her with a wistful earnestness, while he sought to imbibe her ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... see what is left of Newcastle Street, which was named after John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, who owned the ground (1711). The work of demolition is going on as far as Catherine Street, where the Gaiety theatre still stands, though not for long, for the second great scimitar sweep of the new street will join the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... greets him with delight, takes him inside and seats him on a couch of flowers. Udho stays outside and then while Krishna waits, the girl quickly bathes, scents herself, combs her hair and changes her dress. Then 'with gaiety and endearment' she approaches Krishna. Krishna, however, takes her by the hand and places her near him. Their passions rise and the two achieve the utmost bliss. Krishna then leaves her, rejoins Udho and 'blushing ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... meet and see her always. LAVARCHAM. A good right is it? Haven't the blind a good right to be seeing, and the lame to be dancing, and the dummies singing tunes? It's that right you have to be looking for gaiety on Deirdre's lips. (Coax- ingly.) Come on to your dun, I'm saying, and leave her quiet for one night itself. CONCHUBOR — with sudden anger. — I'll not go, when it's long enough I am above in my dun stretching east and west without a comrade, and I more needy, maybe, than the thieves of Meath. ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... laughing and a little flushed, the strain of long fatigue sounding through his gaiety and looking out of his anxious eyes, Mrs. Fairford threw a glance at Bowen and then turned ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... entrance, and still I recall with pleasure the delusive moments, when strolling about the place of St. Mark the first evening that I was in Venice, I for a moment mingled in a scene that reminded me of her lost light-heartedness, and of that unrivalled gaiety that so long ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... she would behold the tomb of her parents, and the territory filled with recollections of her father's glory. In silence, but without respite, she had brooded over these scenes. It was the recollection of them that had turned her infant gaiety to seriousness, and had impressed her ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... from a modern standpoint, was an attractive, highly accomplished, and admirable woman. In her neighbours' eyes she was not quite Puritanical enough, high-spirited, independent, adventurous, fond of innocent gaiety, but a devoted wife when, at last, at the age of thirty, she married. More than once before marriage she was formally censured by the ecclesiastical authorities for her little insubordinations, and these ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Their gaiety came back of itself, so amusing after all did the whole incident seem to them. The Count found rather risky witticisms, but so cleverly told that they provoked smiles. In his turn Loiseau fired some broader jokes, which did not shock the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... balance, of the equilibrium that mediaeval philosophy and culture were always seeking. "The meaning of Aquinas is that mediaevalism was always seeking a centre of gravity. The meaning of Chaucer is that, when found, it was always a centre of gaiety. . . ." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... calls the Loafer's narratives "thrilling," but I, as editor of the Diaries, would prefer another adjective. The Loafer was a man who only cared for gloom and squalor after he had given up the world of gaiety and refinement. Men of his stamp, when they receive a crushing mental blow, always shrink away like wounded animals and forsake their companions. A very distinguished man, who is now living, disappeared for fifteen years, and chose on his return to be regarded as an utter ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... confidence, that he was forced by his oath to return to the king whom he had lately quitted, so soon as he should have settled the affairs of his own country; that he had much to endure, much to accomplish; and that, harassed as he was on all sides, he should never regain his former gaiety till he should have extricated himself from all his difficulties. In the mean time, his mere name had inspired the enemy with alarm; his re-appearance at the head of the armies brought back victory to the royal standard; he saw and seized the moment of making an ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... young ladies were silent and melancholy. Manfred, who was determined to pursue his point with the Marquis in the remainder of the evening, pushed on the feast until it waxed late; affecting unrestrained gaiety, and plying Frederic with repeated goblets of wine. The latter, more upon his guard than Manfred wished, declined his frequent challenges, on pretence of his late loss of blood; while the Prince, to raise his own disordered spirits, and to counterfeit unconcern, indulged himself in plentiful ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... akin in hue to the flaxen tresses of a child, was streaming down like rain, filling the atmosphere with the warm quiver of its sparkle. It was like a festival of the infinite, instinct with sovereign peacefulness and gentle gaiety, whilst the city, chequered with golden beams, still remained lazy and sleepy, unwilling to reveal itself by casting off ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... virtues have none themselves; for we speak from our hearts, and we tell of others that which we think of ourselves. The French, a mournful, sad, and unhappy nation—even at the bottom of all their external gaiety—have a sad word, a participle, desillusionne, disillusioned; and by it they mean one who has worn out all his youthful ideas, who has been behind the scenes, and has seen the bare walls of the theater, without ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... While we've been sleeping in this seal cavern, he has had his men working away to carry off all that stuff to his ship. Poor old Ladle! He won't even get enough silk to make his mother a dress. Well, are you ready?" he continued, with forced gaiety. "I'm hungry and thirsty, and my ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... natural inclinations, it appears to me evident, that as comic wit with the Italians consists in grotesque mimicry or buffoonery, and with the English in humour, with the French it consists in good-natured gaiety. Among the lower orders especially this property is everywhere visible, where it has not been supplanted by the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... gaiety in the prospect before me, I confess," said Lord Glenvarloch, "even if your father and good Master Heriot should succeed in putting my affairs on some footing of plausible hope. And yet I trust to do something for my vassals as my ancestors before me, and to teach my children, as I have myself ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... sufficient importance to be invited. None of the Vestals were present and their box was occupied by Marcia and her intimates. There were enough spectators seated to give the amphitheater an appearance of gaiety and vivacity almost as great as if it had been filled by all classes of the populace. The weather was clear, warm and sunny, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... at this time was very happy, or, at least, too busy to recall her earlier dreams of happiness. The whole-hearted devotion to gaiety of this stranded little community, its elegance, despite its limitations, its unbounded hospitality to all within its guarded portals, its very absence of intellectual criticism, made the formal life of her brief past appear dull and drab in the retrospect. The spirit of Puritanism seemed to ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... The joy and gaiety of St. Francis were of two kinds. There was the joy of love, and there was the joy of suffering for love. And of this last he spoke a wonderful rhapsody as he journeyed once with Brother Leo, in the grievous cold of the early spring, from Perugia to St. Mary ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... men for me!" he cried, with an almost terrible gaiety. "Shake hands upon the bargain!" (his hand was cold and wet). "You little know in what a company you will begin the march! You little know in what a happy moment for yourselves you partook of my cream tarts! I am only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this resolution, he himself wrote a note to Mr Bold, the same afternoon, inviting him to meet a few friends and hear some music on an evening named in the next week. Had not this little party been promised to Eleanor, in his present state of mind he would probably have avoided such gaiety; but the promise had been given, the invitations were to be written, and when Eleanor consulted her father on the subject, she was not ill pleased to hear him say, "Oh, I was thinking of Bold, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... clambered on, finding room as best they could among the cans, from which dripped bloody bandages, ashes, and bits of decaying food, and the truck rumbled off towards the incinerator, through the streets of Paris that sparkled with the gaiety ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... night with dusky mantle covers The skies (and the more duskily the better), The Time less liked by husbands than by lovers Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter; And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers, Giggling with all the gallants who beset her; And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... brain, Nell," he replied, lightly—as lightly as of old—success had not destroyed the old gaiety of heart. "I've consulted a learned physician, Dr. Sydenham Celsus Galen, Wimpole Street. He says that an engagement with the right girl—he is extremely particular on that point, so that I do hope, Nell, we have made no mistake—is a sovereign remedy for all mopey, glum, dumpsy, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Ireland the race called by the name of De Danaan, or People of the Goddess Dana. They were a folk who delighted in beauty and gaiety, and in fighting and feasting, and loved to go gloriously apparelled, and to have their weapons and household vessels adorned with jewels and gold. They were also skilled in magic arts, and their harpers could make music so enchanting that a man who heard it ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... wounded in the battle in which my son was killed, came to see us in London in September. From him we had a full account of the last three months of Paul's life. Among other things, Captain Gates spoke of his joie de vivre, infectious gaiety, hearty appetite, liberal contributions to the mess funds. Paul, he said, was the life and soul of the section. When they were out of the battle-line he used to begin his day by a plunge in the adjacent river. He would come into breakfast looking ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... fourth an arrangement of three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a gigantic pair of bones (tricca-ballache); and the fifth a Jew's harp (scaccia-pensieri). A tarantella danced to the accompaniment of so weird a medley of instruments and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful and decorous performance that can be observed any day for payment in a Sorrentine or Neapolitan hotel; yet it must ever be borne ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... family had made our fraternal relations with her nearer and closer. Familiarity had been far from lessening our strong feeling for her goodness and sweetness. Emily, who knew her best, used to confide to me little instances of the spirit of devotion and self-discipline that underlay all her sunny gaiety—how she never failed in her morning's devout readings; how she learnt a verse or two of Scripture every day, and persuaded Emily to join with her in repeating it ere they went downstairs for their evening's pleasure; how she had set herself ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as you can let me have it, including charges for the supper that was ordered, though we cannot stay to eat it, I am sorry to say.' He added with forced gaiety, 'The lady's father and cousin have thought better of intercepting the marriage, and after quarrelling with each other ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... A half smile, which seemed to arise from a happy exuberance of animal spirits, showed now and then that his teeth were well set, and as pure as ivory; whilst his bright blue eye, with a corresponding gaiety, had an appropriate glance for every object which it encountered, expressing good humour, lightness ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... France comforting an English boy during his last moments out in No Man's Land. The thing is well and delicately done, with a reserve that may encourage the judicious to hope for good work in the future from a pen that is (I fancy) as yet somewhat new. On the other hand, I must confess that the Gaiety left me (though this, of course, may be an isolated experience) with sides unshaken. "Callisthenes at Cambridge," for example, is but little removed from the article that, to my certain knowledge, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... figures, the attitudes, and the general mise-en-scene vividly recall the earlier style of Carpaccio, who was at this very time composing his delightful fairy tales of the "Legend of S. Ursula."[21] Common to both painters is a gaiety and love of beauty and colour. There is also in both a freedom and ease, even a homeliness of conception, which distinguishes their work from the pageant pictures of Gentile Bellini, whose "Corpus Christi Procession" was produced two or three years later, in 1496.[21] But Giorgione's art is ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... the shadow of the tall trees into the open glade effulgent with flowers, his gaiety seems to have reached its climax: it breaks forth in song; and for some minutes the forest re-echoes the well-known lay of "Woodman spare that tree." Whence this joyous humour? Why are those eyes sparkling with a scarce concealed triumph? ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... would he be if, after having been bandied and knocked about with the utmost unanimity as a greenhorn, only one skirt should be left in the hands of these youthful beauties, who, in the fervour of gaiety, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... agitated," said Hector, starting as from a dream; "I was vexed,—that is all; but it is over now," and resuming his usual gaiety of manner, he turned to ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... them half living within its walls." Our friend Mary, as a half-fledged young lady, saw a great deal of these poor refugees, who had lost everything but their lives. They seem, however, to have shown the true French courage and gaiety under evil circumstances. There was much singing and playing under the trees; and they helped the school-girls to get up some little French plays to act at their breaking-up party. Mary took a part in the character of a French abbess, but she tells us that "assuredly" her talents ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... the hero is a weakling, the subject a fiasco, the end a premature death and a personal disillusionment, yet, in spite of this theme, which might have been chosen for its depressing qualities, the unconquerable paean of the praise of things, the ungovernable gaiety of the poet's song swells so high that at the end it seems to drown all the weak voices of the characters in one crashing chorus of great things and great men. A multitude of mottoes might be taken from ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... this little society appeared to be labouring under dejection, the rest assembled around, and endeavoured to banish her painful thoughts by amusing the mind rather than by grave arguments against them. Each performed this kind office in their own appropriate manner: Margaret, by her gaiety; Madame de la Tour, by the gentle consolations of religion; Virginia, by her tender caresses; Paul, by his frank and engaging cordiality. Even Mary and Domingo hastened to offer their succour, and to weep with those that wept. Thus do weak plants interweave themselves with ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... through the double doors swung back by colored attendants. Strains of music reached the street and ceased when the doors opened and shut and the sound of many voices in conversation and happy laughter burst upon the ear of the passer-by. Inside, all was gaiety and animation. Festoons of greens hung from the chandelier of kerosene lights and garlands and wreaths decorated the walls of the wide hall and rooms where there was dancing. In the ballroom five colored musicians were the orchestra ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... white cap and apron, waited deftly upon the table; a woman of serious countenance—so serious that the colonel wondered if she were a present-day type of her race, and if the responsibilities of freedom had robbed her people of their traditional light-heartedness and gaiety. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the conditions of aesthetics"—but forces the conviction that disregard of this requirement renders all sterile and incomplete, if not monstrous. Is this equivalent to saying that the deductions from the law of Delsarte tend to condemn in French literature its simple gaiety, its graceful lightness, and to efface this stamp of the race that our ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... my life has been passed in all the vicissitudes of war and peace. The camp and the bivouac—the reckless gaiety of the mess-table —the comfortless solitude of a French prison—the exciting turmoils of active service—the wearisome monotony of garrison duty, I have alike partaken of, and experienced. A career of this kind, with a temperament ever ready to go with ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... of much history, much character, and much local colour of the tone which artists love, and above all a certain gaiety and brilliancy which one usually associates ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... always sad and dispirited; never welcoming the glad sunshine, but ever calling for leaden skies and a weeping Heaven. Others again, little coquettes with village green, white palings everywhere, bright gravel roads, and an irrepressible air of brightness and gaiety. ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... another concerned a girl who would rather lie in the dust of her lord's chariot than be the ecstasy of lesser man. Beth Truba's face was upturned to the light—to the last pallor of day. She was like a wraith singing and communing with the tuneful tragedies of women world-wide. But there was gaiety in her heart.... Then the knocker, the scurrying of dreams away, and the voice of Marguerite Grey ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... tears! I have suffered alone and without you the wrath of heaven; alone and without you I have descended into my soul's abyss, an abyss which has been opened by the earthquake of sorrow; and, while repentance was gnawing at my heart, I had for you nothing but looks of tenderness, and smiles of gaiety! Come, Ferdinand, do not despise a slave who lies in such utter ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... uncertain, lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The pucker-pear tree was in full bloom, however, and gave a welcome gaiety to the deserted door-yard. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... ever since its creation pierced through the mist of tears in which at times it has been shrouded. What has been will be. Nay, more, what has been shall be. It is the Law of what I believe to be God.... As a concrete instance, where do you find a fuller expression of the divine gaiety of the human spirit than in the Houses of Pain, strewn the length and breadth of the land, filled with maimed and shattered men who have looked into the jaws of Hell? If it comes to that, I have looked into them ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... obliged to me if I would take the trouble. Sir William alleged that I grew quite vain of my skill in tormenting my poor husband with these animals. The same day Dr Hume(35) called in passing to Brussels, for ten minutes. I was a little provoked at the gaiety of his manner; the gravity he assumed at Brussels would have been suitable to the present scene. Though Sir William never complained, he was serious, and seemed inclined to be quiet, and neither to speak much nor to listen. He generally lay thinking, often ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... afternoon was extremely cold her cheeks never ceased to burn till she got the children safely back to the flat again. Tony was gloomy and taciturn. Nobody took the slightest notice of him. Weather that seemed to brace his sister to the most energetic gaiety only made him feel torpid and miserable. He was not naughty, merely apathetic, uninterested, and consequently uninteresting. Meg thought he might be homesick and sad about Ayah, and was very kind and gentle, but her ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... march that the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now distracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising a few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached gaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor shout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)—yet all the while having for centre, for magnet, a young man alone ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... mourning dress, together with an expression of quiet manly grief, which at times shaded his countenance, combined to make him interesting to us; nevertheless, you thought that he looked too stern, and I very soon lost in his presence my accustomed gaiety. Whenever his dark grave eyes were fixed upon me, I was conscious that they possessed a half-bewitching, half-oppressive power over me; I felt myself happy because of it, yet at the same time filled with anxiety; my very action was constrained, my hands became cold and did everything blunderingly, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... reader? In many an old castle the attention of the visitor is directed to a haunted room, where ghosts are said to walk at night; but in how many hearts there are dark subterranean apartments, where conscience, gagged and bound, lies imprisoned! Outwardly there is the gaiety and mirth as of a palace; but inwardly there is remorse, misery, unrest. In lonely hours there is a voice which pierces the thickest walls of your assumed indifference, and rings up into the house of your life, where the soul seeks to close ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... oysters, the true natives, now driven by the silting up of their ancient beds to Whitstable, were as much in repute with Roman epicures as their descendants are to-day with the young Luculluses of the Gaiety and the Criterion. ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... insisted on having green wood lighted beneath the toldo, in the hope of driving away the mosquitos by the smoke. The painful sensations of the eyes, and the increase of heat, already stifling, rendered both these contrivances alike impracticable. With some gaiety of temper, with feelings of mutual good-will, and with a vivid taste for the majestic grandeur of these vast valleys of rivers, travellers easily support evils ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sights I {60} have witnessed was a male Gnatcatcher that had relieved his mate at the nest. He was sitting on the eggs and, with head thrown back, sang with all his might, apparently unconscious of the evil which such gaiety might ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... about very distinctly, and did not notice what the cause of it was. Boys very often feel a sort of uneasiness of mind,—they do not know exactly how or why,—and they have this feeling mingling sometimes strangely with their very enjoyment, in their hours of gaiety and glee. Now the real reason of this unquiet state of mind, in Caleb's case, was that his conscience had been disturbed by his feelings of vexation and impatience, towards Raymond, for not leaving his work, to come and kindle his fire. He had not yielded to these feelings. He ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... Clapperton heard the doleful tale of a mother, who had seen her child dashed to the ground, while she herself was compelled by the lash to drag on an exhausted frame. Yet, when at all tolerably treated, they are very gay, an observation generally made in regard to slaves, but this gaiety, arising only from the absence of thought, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... dark green foliage and floats near. But Celia, apart, is pensive and must sigh, And Anais but faintly pursues the game. An encroaching, inner flame Burns in their hearts with the acrid smoke of unrest; But gaiety runs like quicksilver in Rose's breast, And Phillis, rising, Walks by herself with high and springy tread, All her young blood racing from heels to head, Breeding new desires and a new surprising Strength and determination, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... given her neither gaiety nor gentleness; under the pressure of this insoluble mystery she became ill-tempered as a wife and moody as ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... impression that these things were only true from an ideal point of view. She clung to these fables as a Breton; as a Gascon she was inclined to laugh at them, and this was the secret of the sprightliness and gaiety of her life. This state of things has been the means of giving me what little talent I may have for historical studies. I have derived from it a kind of habit of looking below the surface and hearing sounds which other ears do not catch. The essence of criticism ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... gipsy-spirit returns—and he is off again, blithe as ever, on his travels. "London very naice," he says, as you buy that infernal Pestarena; "Porebier, very naise; 'Ampton Court, very naise; I know dem, hein? But, is no sunshine, no air, no gaiety." And ADOLF cannot exist without sunshine, air, and gaiety. Also he prefers being his own master, which, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... looking over her shoulder, and nodded at Cornish, her fresh lips tilted at the corner by a smile full of gaiety and mysticism. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... situation of the most menial servant, who is free from this solemn and sacred responsibility."[105] The reply of Macquarie was witty rather than relevant. He told Lord Sidmouth, in effect, that the sorrows of Marsden were too deep for discovery: noted for the cheerfulness, and even gaiety of his temper, his movements were too rapid for grief; and his days, divided between the cares of farming, grazing, and trade—to say nothing of his clerical occupation—left him no time for sorrow.[106] The evils he described are, however, proved by uniform ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... disappointed when Callum announced that the proceedings must stop there. Danny was inclined to rebel, and Isabel failed to explain such conduct. But Scotty found ample compensation for their restriction in the happy change in Callum. His old gaiety came back, his eyes sparkled, and he would snatch up Isabel and go leaping about the house with her perched shrieking upon his shoulder, just as he used to do in the happy days before the Orangemen came to blight ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... at the club for a dinner at which David was host. It was a nicely appointed dinner, the best the chef could contrive. Also it was distinctly an extravagance. But David did not care. His spirits ran high, in a gaiety that was infectious. It was a ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... you a desire to possess it? Do not be influenced by the probability or the improbability of your reading it. After all, one does read a certain proportion of what one buys. And further, instinct counts. The man who spends half a crown on Stubbs's "Early Plantagenets" instead of going into the Gaiety pit to see "The Spring Chicken," will probably be the sort of man who can suck goodness out of Stubbs's "Early Plantagenets" years before he ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... itself struck a note of modern English gaiety, as of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, divested of its historic mellowness, the electric light replacing the ancient candles and flooding the winter afternoon with white resplendence. The pulpit—yes, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Teazle" in 'The School for Scandal', at Covent Garden, June 1, 1814. A list of her principal characters is given by Genest ('English Stage', vol. viii. pp. 432-434). As a comic actress, Mrs. Jordan was unrivalled; her voice was perfect; and her natural gaiety irresistible. Sir Joshua Reynolds preferred her to all other actresses as a being "who ran upon the stage as a playground, and laughed from sincere wildness of delight." In genteel comedy, critics like Genest ('English Stage', vol. viii. p. 431) and Leigh Hunt ('Dramatic Essays', ed. 1894, p. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Southern States, that the efforts of the Northerns were principally directed, and to it flocked the leading men from all parts of the country. Although every Virginian family had some of its members at the front, and a feeling of anxiety reigned everywhere, a semblance of gaiety was kept up. The theater was opened, and parties and balls given, in order to keep up the spirits of the people by the example ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... and sustained attack upon Mary's inexperienced mind, from a dashing, fashionable lover, who held out to her acceptance all the charms and glitter of a life of ease, and splendor, and dissipation. His uneasy sensations were by no means quieted by his companion's gaiety, who having at once surmised, or pretended so to have done, the object of the Gothamite's visit, promised herself much amusement from ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... on me. Outside I could hear the distant strain of the orchestra, and the various noises of a great crowd of people. But this little dark room, with its sharply defined oval of light, was utterly shut off from the scene of gaiety. I was aware of an involuntary shiver, and for the life of me I could not keep my gaze steadily on the face of the tall woman who sat so still, with such impressiveness, on the other side of the table. I waited for her to proceed, and after what ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... jokes, whispered from ear to ear, went the round of the crowd. The name was a caress in itself; it was a pet name, the very familiarity of which suited every lip. Merely through enunciating it thus, the throng worked itself into a state of gaiety and became highly good natured. A fever of curiosity urged it forward, that kind of Parisian curiosity which is as violent as an access of positive unreason. Everybody wanted to see Nana. A lady had the flounce of her dress torn off; a ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... The prince seemed to enjoy himself. He was very good-looking, with a slight, elegant figure and charming smile—didn't look like a man whose life would end so tragically. When I saw him some years later in London, he was changed, looked older, had lost his gaiety, was evidently bored with the official entertaining, and used to escape from all the dinners and receptions as soon as ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... to begin over again, that he might talk all the way. These eccentricities of attire were merely a part of the rather attractive vanity of a clever youth, whose exuberance of spirits was, in spite of much bad health, at that time so great that he was often merry with a gaiety that was as child-like as it was amusing. In later life he gradually modified his ideas as to dress, and in the Vailima Letters he writes of himself in Samoa as going to Apia to social amusements in ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... so it does, but it subjects it to so many untimely trials and injurious customs, that that very respect is fearful. A young girl, fresh from childhood, blossoming into a woman, rosy health in her veins, innocence in her heart, caroling gaiety in her laugh, buoyant life in her step, the rich glance of an opening soul in her eye, grace in her form with the casket of mind richly jeweled, is indeed an object of beauty. He who can behold it and not feel a benevolent interest in it, is an object of ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... continuous exertions often tired her. Nan had cautioned her not to attempt too much gaiety during this visit, and she wanted to ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... events this is better than I expected—but now I'll tell you what I propose to do. Harcourt was with me yesterday, and he wishes me to go down with him to ——. There will be the assizes, and the county ball, and a great deal of gaiety, and I have an idea that it is just as well to beat the country as the town. I dine with Mr Masterton on Friday. On Saturday I will go down and see Fleta, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I will start with Harcourt to his father's, where he has promised me a hearty welcome. Was there anything ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... from that germ of madness which lay hidden in his nature had no influence upon his central sanity. It gave him the tragic pathos and mortal beauty of his wit, its dangerous nearness to the heart, its quick sense of tears, its at times desperate gaiety; and, also, a hard, indifferent levity, which, to brother and sister alike, was a rampart against obsession, or a stealthy way of temporising with the enemy. That tinge is what gives its strange glitter ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... while in 1680 it was estimated that at least four-fifths of the entire population of New France had some Norman blood in their veins. Officials and merchants came chiefly from Paris, and they coloured the life of the little settlement at Quebec with a Parisian gaiety; but the Norman dominated the fields—his race formed the backbone ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... perception, his long training in his profession gave him that divining sense which goes to the depths of conscience and reads its secret thoughts. Though grave and deliberate in business, the patriarch could be gay with the gaiety of our ancestors. He could risk a song after dinner, enjoy all family festivities, celebrate the birthdays of grandmothers and children, and bury with due solemnity the Christmas log. He loved to send presents at New Year, and ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... and it fills it very well, but the marvel is that the Britisher submits to it, when he can spend his weekends, or his holiday, at Boulogne or Dieppe for practically the same expenditure of time and money, and get real genuine relaxation and a gaiety which is not forced. So ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... that she is really sad," rejoined the abbe. "Nowadays, when she is gay, her gaiety is excessive; at such a time there seems to be something strange and forced about her which is quite foreign to her usual manner. Then the next minute she relapses into a state of melancholy, which I never noticed before the famous ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... summer,—that brief time of glory and enchantment which visits us like a gaudy herald to announce the approach of the Winter King. It is Nature's last rejoicing in the sunshine and the open air, like the splendor and gaiety of a maiden devoted to the cloister, who for a few weeks is allowed to flutter like a bird of paradise amid the pleasures and gaieties of the world, and then comes the end. Her locks of pride are shorn off; she veils her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... soon as I get to Toulouse," in a letter written from Paris on the 10th of April, might well have reminded Sterne of the strange way in which he had carried out his intention of "wintering in the South." He insists, however, upon the curative effects of his winter of gaiety in Paris. "I am recovered greatly," he says; "and if I could spend one whole winter at Toulouse, I should be fortified in my inner man beyond all danger of relapsing." There was another, too, for whom this change of climate had become imperatively ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... made and these festoons hung, had been turned away from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance and gaiety. ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... flourish here, and many more in the various industries connected with the incessantly growing commerce in those sparkling wines which have made the name of this ancient province synonymous with luxury and gaiety in the remotest corners of the world. Though Epernay is the real headquarters of this commerce, two or three of the most important houses connected with it are, and long have been, established at Reims, and some of the most remarkable of the vast cellars excavated in the chalk, in which these ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the startled vision; but the reckless profusion and movement of the Great White Way, as I turned out of 42nd Street on my first evening in New York, came as something more than a surprise: a revelation of wilful gaiety. We have normally nothing in England to compare with it. Nor can we have even our Earl's Court exhibition imitations of it so long as coal is so rare and costly. But though we had the driving power for the electricity we could never get ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... pleasure, bliss, ecstasy, gratification, rapture, cheer, enjoyment, joy, rejoicing, comfort, felicity, merriment, satisfaction, contentment, gaiety, mirth, triumph. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald |
