"Mirth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The mirth faded from the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades 'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful from a nephew touching his uncle—particularly when that uncle is a prelate—that I refrain ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... to it, and he continued waving it in front of himself all the time we were there. He seemed in good spirits, laughing heartily several times. This is a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is seldom difficult to deal with. When we rose to take leave, all rose with ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... said. "He was the 'shock'! How perfectly ridiculous! Robin had never played with a boy before and she fell in love with him. The little thing's actually pining away for him." She dropped the grapes and gave herself up to delicate mirth. "He was taken away and disappeared. Perhaps she fainted and fell into the wet flower bed and spoiled her frock, when she first realized that he ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... younger pirate, so promptly and so gravely that again I had much to do to refrain from sudden mirth. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... understand them aright we cannot possibly see in them any motive for low jesting. They are simple, serious and solemn words, connoting the most central facts of life, and only to ignorant and plebeian vulgarity can they cause obscene mirth. An American man of science, who has privately and anonymously printed some pamphlets on sex questions, also takes this view, and consistently and methodically uses the ancient and simple words. I am of opinion that this is the ideal to be sought, but that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Chinaman's name was printed. We went up the steps of the stoop, rang the bell, and were admitted without any delay. From the outside the house bore a rather gloomy aspect, the windows being absolutely dark, but within, it was a veritable house of mirth. When we had passed through a small vestibule and reached the hallway, we heard mingled sounds of music and laughter, the clink of glasses, and the pop of bottles. We went into the main room and I was little prepared for what I saw. The ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... extraordinary figure in language to which they were so little used, the women could not restrain their mirth, but laughed so long and loud that Don Quixote began to be vexed and said in a tone of grave rebuke, "Beauty and discourtesy are ill-matched together, and unseemly is the laugh which folly breeds in a vacant mind. Take not my words amiss, for I mean no ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... when we brought Mathews down as far as Leamington. Poor Byron lunched, or rather made an early dinner, with us at Long's, and a most brilliant day we had of it. I never saw Byron so full of fun, frolic, wit, and whim: he was as playful as a kitten. Well, I never saw him again.[86] So this man of mirth, with his merry meetings, has brought me no luck. I like better that he should throw in his talent of mimicry and humour into the present current tone of the company, than that he should be required to give this, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... universal, perhaps the most fatal, of all, fretting the whole depth of our humanity into storm "to waft a feather or to drown a fly,"—definitely expressed in art. Even Spenser, I think, has only partially expressed it under the figure of Phaedria, more properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however, entirely worked out in the Vanity Fair ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... awaiting the command to move, several half-hearted attempts at jocularity died cold. One irrepressible made a futile attempt at frivolity by announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and was so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted jocularity drew as much mirth as an undertaker's final invitation to the mourners to take the last, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... altered so much within her mind;—why she should so suddenly have come to regard him in an altered light. It was not simply that he looked to be older, and because his face was careworn. It was not only that he had lost that look of an Apollo which Lily had once in her mirth attributed to him. I think it was chiefly that she herself was older, and could no longer see a god in such a man. She had never regarded John Eames as being gifted with divinity, and had therefore always been making comparisons to his discredit. Any such comparison now would tend quite ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... had given me and Tom a wink, as he repeated the two last lines; and then we saw what was going on, we burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "Boys! boys!" said the Dominie, starting up, "thou hast awakened me, by thy boisterous mirth, from a sweet musing created by the harmony of friend Dux's voice. Neither do I discover the source of thy cachinnation, seeing that the song is amatory and not comic. Still, it may not be supposed, at thy early age, that thou canst be affected ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... their happiness here, and their glory hereafter. Such a strange stupidity hath seized upon the hearts of men, that they will venture the loss of their immortal souls for a few dying comforts, and will expose themselves to endless misery for a moment's mirth, and short-lived pleasures. But, certainly, a barn well fraught, a bag well filled, a back well clothed, and a body well fed, will prove but poor comforts when men come to die, when death shall not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he!" and he shook his fist waggishly at the unconscious gray dog. "I owe ye anither grudge for this—ye've anteecipated me"—and he leant back and shook this way and that in convulsive mirth. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... quiet spirit lulls the lab'ring brain, Lures back to thought the flights of vacant mirth, Consoles the mourner, soothes the couch of pain, And wreathes contentment round the humble hearth; While savage warriors, soften'd by thy breath, Unbind the captive, hate had doomed ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the cloud, and green from earth, And from a human breast the fire he drew, And life and death were blended in one dew. A sunbeam golden with the morning's mirth, A wan, salt phantom from the sea, a girth Of silver from the moon, shot colour through The soul invisible, until it grew To fulness, and ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... jaws wide and laughed. Granger had never heard him laugh before, and the sound was not pleasant. There was nothing of mirth about the man or in anything that he said—there was only disappointment and scorn. His bitterness became horrible when he pretended to be merry. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision." It was like the thunderous scoffing of ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love's oblivion, and remembering hate. Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, With ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... far-fetched similes, the endless and often most inappropriate classical, mythological, and quasi-zoological allusions and parallels, are indeed sufficiently absurd and wearisome; and when "Euphuism" became a fashionable craze, its sillier disciples were a very fit target for jesting and mirth, very much as in our own day the humorists found abundant and legitimate food for laughter in the vagaries of what was known as "aestheticism". In both cases, the extravagances were the separable accidents, the superficial excrescences, of a real intellectual ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... see that Irishman—the fellow who had charge of the box. He looks poorly enough, as far as this world's goods are concerned, but happy and full of mirth, for all that." ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... the boughs Sing all day to his nested spouse? What but the song of his old Mother-Earth, In her mighty humour of lust and mirth? 'Love and God's will go wing and wing, And as for death, is there any such thing?'— In the shadow of death, So, at the beck of the wizard Spring The dear bird ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... Caderousse, unable to appear abroad in his pristine splendor, had given up any further participation in the pomps and vanities, both for himself and wife, although a bitter feeling of envious discontent filled his mind as the sound of mirth and merry music from the joyous revellers reached even the miserable hostelry to which he still clung, more for the shelter than ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Thackeray and Dickens. Of all the pupils of Dickens he is perhaps the only one who has continued to be himself, who has not fallen into a trick of aping his master's mannerisms. His mixture of the serious, the earnest, the pathetic, makes his humour not unlike the melancholy mirth of Thackeray and Sterne. He is almost the only American humorist with sentiment. It is only the air, not the spirit, that ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... see how much enjoyment every one but Jim and myself got out of the situation. They howled with mirth over the feeblest jokes, and when Max told a story without any point whatever, they all had hysteria. Immediately after dinner Aunt Selina had begun on the family connection again, and after two bad breaks on my part, Jim offered to show her the house. The ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... than temporary and objectless annoyance. Throughout the whole play runs a healthy, thoughtless, honest, almost riotous happiness; no note of difficulty, no shadow of coming doubt being perceptible. The pert and nimble spirit of mirth is fully awakened; the worst tricks of the intermeddling spirits are mischievous merely, and of only transitory influence, and "the summer still doth tend upon their state," brightening this fairyland with its sunshine and flowers. Man has absolutely no power ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... very probable that death was not due to the emotion itself, but to the extreme convulsion and exertion used in the laughter. The Ephemerides mentions a death from laughter, and also describes the death of a pregnant woman from violent mirth. Roy, Swinger, and Camerarius have recorded instances of death from laughter. Strange as it may seem, Saint-Foix says that the Moravian brothers, a sect of Anabaptists having great horror of bloodshed, executed their condemned brethren by ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... gifted but hostile woman who watched him from the gallery—Lincoln, conversely, made no such overpowering impression. His observers, however much they have to say about his humor, his seasons of Shakespearian mirth, never forget their impression that at heart he is sad. His fondness for poetry in the minor key has become a byword, especially the line "Oh, why should the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... wakened with an aching head, he recollected with disgust the figure of Father Jos, and all the noisy mirth of the preceding night. Not without some self-contempt, he asked himself what had ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... his own energetic and valorous conduct—all these were a pleasant relief to the ennui of a barrack life and, during the several days' visit of "los barbaros," the Comandante and his captain were never without a theme for mirth ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... student, and somewhat of the college professor in his appearance. But he is a very sincere man; has neither show nor fussiness in him; and practices his duties with a strict, quiet regularity. He may have moods of mirth and high moments of sparkling glee, but he looks as if he had never only laughed right out about once in his life, and had repented of it directly afterwards. If he had more dash and less shyness ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the forms, colours, and other characteristics of animals and plants are by no means new. Our Teutonic forefathers had a pretty story which explained certain points about several common plants. Balder, the God of Mirth and Merriment, was, characteristically enough, regarded as deficient in the possession of immortality. The other divinities, fearing to lose him, petitioned Thor to make him immortal, and the prayer was granted on condition ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... my raillery very well, and merrily replied with the old English proverb, that he doubted mine eyes were bigger than my belly, for he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and continuing in his mirth, protested, that he would have gladly given a hundred pounds to have seen my closet in the eagle's bill, and afterward in its fall from so great a height into the sea, which would certainly have been a most astonishing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... description of the memorable banquet given at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, in the spring of 1751, to celebrate the publication of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's first novel. What delightful revelry! what innocent mirth! prolonged though it was till long after dawn. Poor Mrs. Lennox died in distress in 1804, at the age of eighty-three. Could Johnson but have lived he would have lent her his helping hand. He was no fair-weather friend, but shares with Charles Lamb the honour of being able to unite narrow ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing, He put a silent prayer up for the bride, For they stood near who saw his lips move. He came invited to the marriage-feast With the bride's friends, And was the merriest of them all that day; But they, who knew him best, call'd it feign'd mirth; And others said, He wore a smile like death's upon his face. His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth, And he went away in tears. Simon. What followed then? Marg. Oh! then He did not as neglected suitors use Affect a life ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... one of the loveliest of all the Shakespearean plays. It is the best English comedy. The great mind that mixed a tragedy of intellect with a tragedy of stupidity, here mixes mirth with romantic beauty. The play is so mixed with beauty that one can see it played night after night, week after week, without weariness, even in a ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... but they were out of bounds, and had to scramble back, which they did undetected, and with much more mirth than the first time. Cicely was young enough to be glad to throw off her anxieties and forget them. She did not want to talk over the plots she only guessed at; which were not to her exciting mysteries, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of tears. Though you sing for very gladness, Others will not see your mirth; They will mourn your fancied sadness. Though you laugh at them in scorn, Show your happy heart for token, Michael, you'll protest in vain— They will ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... night after night. I was afraid that when I heard her voice it would break the spell, and I actually shook like a man with an ague when she tripped out on the stage as the ingenue in 'Honourable Women.' And her laughter! You know how hollow the usual stage mirth is, but that girl's laugh had the joy ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... seems to come into action in these last two cases; for the mental condition of one mind is not only communicated to another, but it appears to be increased and intensified by the communication. Each does not feel merely the enthusiasm or the mirth which would naturally be felt by the other, but the general emotion is vastly heightened by its being so largely shared. It is like the case of the live coal, which does not merely set the dead coal on fire by being placed in contact with it, but the two together, when together, burn far ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... gown, as he had worn his uniform, with the gallant bearing of a King's Guardsman. But the people loved him all the more for his jests, which never lacked the accompaniment of genuine charity. His sayings furnished all New France with daily food for mirth and laughter, without detracting an iota of the respect in which the Recollets were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... sharing the mirth of the Indian, when music of a very different sort stifled the laugh upon his lips. It was the cry of the jaguars, that, suddenly excited by the voice of the student, had all four of them sent forth ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... being innocent of that peculiar German type of vanity which runs to hair, yet he could not prevent people from commenting on his extraordinary hirsute adornment. Their occasional remarks excited his mirth. If they spoke of it again, he would protest. Once, among a small party of his closest friends, the conversation turned upon the subject of hair, and then upon the beauty of his hair; whereupon he cried out, 'I am embarrassed by ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... for me. I like her," said Gorst stoutly; and Mrs. Hannay hid in her pocket-handkerchief a face quivering with mirth. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... sinking of the Merline bound for Guinea.] The 26 day the Minion came in also where he was, for the reioycing whereof he gaue them certaine pieces of ordinance after the curtesie of the Sea for their welcome, but the Minions men had no mirth because of their consort the Merline, whom at their departure from M. Hawkins vpon the coast of England, they went to seeke, and hauing met with her, kept company two dayes together, and at last by misfortune of fire (through the negligence of one of the gunners) the pouder in the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... The greater the fear evinced by the victims, the greater was the delight of the humorously inclined menials, and if perchance a dog succeeded in fixing his fangs in the garments or calf of a pedestrian their mirth found vent in ecstatic shouts of laughter. Basilivitch had on more than one occasion been upon such errands as that which brought him to-day, and seemed on terms of familiarity with the liveried guardians ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... me! of mirth; There's nothing lightsome left on earth: Only one scene is fain, O, Where far remote The moonbeams gloat, And sleeps the ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... in the centre of an intense redness of light, like another dawn. Thousands of angels were hanging buoyant around her, each having its own distinct splendour and adornment, and all were singing, and expressing heavenly mirth; and she smiled on them with such loveliness, that joy was in the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... flowers, fresh flowers for the bride to wear; They were born to blush in her shining hair; She's leaving the home of her childhood's mirth; She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth; Her place is now by another's side; Bring flowers for the locks of the ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... caught the reply, and said severely: 'I do not think, Cuthbert, that either I or your father have ever set you the example of "rollicking," as you call it, at this table. Decent mirth and a cheerful tone of conversation we have always encouraged. I don't know why you should receive a mother's remarks with laughter. It is not respectful of you, Cuthbert, I ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... end may be attained Than when the people is attuned to mirth, . . . . . and groans the festal board With meat and bread, and the cup-bearer's ladle From flowing bowl to ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... and, when they swore, did so good-humoredly, and promised their porters fine presents at New-Year; and August, like a shrewd little boy as he was, who even in the secluded Innthal had learned that money is the chief mover of men's mirth, thought to himself, with ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... leaves Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green Invests some wasted tow'r. . . . Then, when the sullen shades of ev'ning close, Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam The dying embers scatter, far remote From Mirth's mad shouts, that thro' th' illumin'd roof Resound with festive echo, let me sit, Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge. . . . O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought! O come with saintly look, and steadfast step, From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew, Where ever to the ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... have his fill, and by his wife and her sisters that no one should have too much, at any rate at the beginning of the evening,) thought fit to carry out Toby to be replenished; and a faster spirit of enjoyment and mirth began to reign ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... mirth appeared to shake the different-whiteness. It stooped. One hand-end fumbled at the palmed rheostat, then dropped to pick up the disarmer. Fumbled again at the rheostat while the figure straightened up to point the glistening projector ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity than mirth and pleasure.' Ranelagh was at Chelsea, the Pantheon was in Oxford-street. See ante, ii. 119, and post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... but her eyes denied the mirth that her lips affirmed, and Appleton had such a sudden, illogical desire to meddle with her career, to help or hinder it, to have a hand in it at any rate, that he could hardly ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... He draws out of an inner pocket a gold-mounted letter-case and a book of cigarette paper. Deliberately he wraps the pearl in one of the tissue leaves, and, looking steadily at me, pushes the new treasure far into a corner of the crested case. There is more significance than mirth in the ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... with which Dr. Royce prepares the way for all that is to follow, deceives the reader at the very outset, predisposes him to believe the preposterous charge that I "appropriated" my main theory from the great idealist Hegel, arouses his indignation or mirth, as the case may be, at my alleged strutting about in borrowed plumes, and so leads him at last to applaud the righteous castigation of the "professional warning," by which the peacock-feathers are made to fly in all directions and I myself am scourged ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... give him back his three cows. But when he came near the Pudding-burn House, he found to his dismay that the two Armstrongs who had stolen his cows, Johnie and Willie, had stopped there, on their way home, with all their men-at-arms, and, from the sounds of feasting and mirth which he heard as he approached, he suspected that one, at least, of his three cows had been killed to provide ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Miss Margaret and the bride created quite a sensation; but when the former explained the ludicrous mistake which caused the doctor's temporary absence from them, their mirth burst all bounds, and the very roof of the grand old mansion shook with peal after peal ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... There was not a trace of mirth in his face. It was evident that he had asked the question ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... Where goat-legged buyers throng. I see not plain:- My meaning is, it must not be again. Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart. If any state be enviable on earth, 'Tis yon born idiot's, who, as days go by, Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly, In a queer sort of meditative mirth. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a train of sleeping memories in the minds of the others, and for the next hour the quiet woodland echoed with their mirth over the curious, quaint and ridiculous aims and fancies of their childhood. The talk gradually drifted back to serious things and went on so earnestly that it was well after four o'clock before the party began to make reluctant preparations to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... into the Hativa-faui, or ladies' dressing-room. Instantly we were surrounded by a bevy of captivating beauties. Our guides had evidently counted on our surprise for they laughed uproariously, their mirth being joyously echoed by the graceful women who crowded about us, patting, petting and bidding us unmistakable welcome to their compound. I have never seen ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... God the dower They have, and have despised as dearth, And scorn as low their human lot, With frantic pride, too blind to see That standing on the head makes not Either for ease or dignity! But fools shall feel like fools to find (Too late inform'd) that angels' mirth Is one in cause, and mode, and kind With that which ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... phases of our fun. We draw for laughter on all the almost countless racial elements that form our citizenry. And the whole content of our wit and humor is made vital by the spirit of youth. The newness of our land and nation gives zest to the pursuit of mirth. We ape the old, but fashion its semblance to suit our livelier fancy. We moralize in our jesting like the Turk, but are likely to veil the maxim under the motley of a Yiddish dialect. Our humor may be as meditative as the German at its best, but with a grotesque flavoring all ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... began; and again, "Fair Mistress Damaris—" but Damaris was counting days and heard him not. A lesser beauty left her work upon King David's crown to laugh aloud, with some malice and some envy in her mirth. "Prithee, let her alone! She will dream thus even in the presence. But I have a spell will make her awaken." She leaned forward and called "Dione!" then with renewed laughter sank back into her ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Prince of Wales's statue, but, unfortunately, he went to pieces in a day or two, when the fierce sun beat down upon the clay, and cracked it. This gradual disintegration of the great ruler's deputy vastly amused the blacks, and I eventually had to hasten the Prince's end, lest their mirth should compromise my dignity. ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... Dantes, "that I am too happy for noisy mirth; if that is what you meant by your observation, my worthy friend, you are right; joy takes a strange effect at times, it seems to oppress us ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a wonderful man, says he, whether we consider the constant good sense, and agreeable mirth of his ordinary conversation, or the vast reach and compass of his inventions, and the amazing depth of his retired thoughts; the uncommon graces of his fashion, or the inimitable turns of his wit, the becoming gentleness, the bewitching softness of his civility, or the force and fitness ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... which was very handsome, and lacked nothing to recommend it to me but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse, which we could neither have with them, nor, by reason of them, with one another; the weightiness which was upon their spirits and countenances keeping down the lightness that would have been ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... well; She is one that is evermore full of strife, And of all scolders beareth the bell. When she speaketh best, then brawleth her tongue; When she is still, she fighteth apace; She is an old witch, though she be young: No mirth with her, no ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... who served in the Garrison during that Memorable Winter. The Company, consisting of upwards of two hundred and thirty Ladies and Gentlemen, made a grand and brilliant appearance, and nothing but mirth and good humour reigned all night long. About half-past six, His Excellency, Sir Guy Carleton, Knight of the Bath, our worthy Governor and Successful General, dressed in the militia uniform, (which added lustre to the Ribbon ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... generally encouraged. Gymnastic exercises may be established for all ages and for all classes. The Jews were ordered to take a walk out of the city on the Sabbath day; and here rich and poor, young and old, master and slave, met ( ) and indulged ( ) in innocent mirth or in the pleasures ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... goldsmith's art; Full often he decks and adorns in glory 75 A great king's noble, who gives him rewards, Grants him broad lands, which he gladly receives. One shall give pleasure to people assembled On the benches at beer, shall bring to them mirth, Where drinkers are draining their draughts of joy. 80 One holding his harp in his hands, at the feet Of his lord shall sit and receive a reward; Fast shall his fingers fly o'er the strings; Daringly dancing and darting ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... me stand back silently, The pageant passes by, And live my life with these new Christs Whom you would crucify, And laugh with mirth to see the mob Do homage ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... with levity, nor is it one with light-minded mirth. It springs from the deeper fountains of the soul, and is not infrequently accompanied by tears. Have you never been so happy that you have had to weep? I have." From an article by the author, Improvement Era, vol. 17, No. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... peacock over 'em. He most dropped 'em when he seen me and I promised not to tell you about it at all, but if you coulder seen him!" And the tried and proven young AEsculapius' mother fairly rolled in her chair with mirth at the recollection. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... spring has waved her sunny wing Upon the verdant earth, And winds from distant, places bring The festal tones of mirth; The sky appears an azure field, With ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... autumn a party from the farm, myself the youngest of them, started for Boston to hear one of a course of lectures. Mr. Ripley was the chairman, and the ever bounteous joyousness of his nature sparkled out in wit and mirth. These meetings were free, and discussion was invited, but there was present an excitable woman who had a habit of rising at any moment, no matter who was speaking, to make odd remarks and inquiries. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... looked in at the door and snickered, then in at the window, then peeked down from between the rafters and cachinnated till his sides must have ached; then struck an attitude upon the chimney, and fairly squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact, he grew so obstreperous, and so disturbed our repose, that we had to "shoo" him away with one of our boots. He declared most plainly that he had never before seen so preposterous a figure as we cut lying there ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... slain. Then all the barons, by one assent, prayed the king of accord between the Lady Igraine and himself. And the king gave them leave, for fain would he have accorded with her; and they were married in a morning with great mirth and joy. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... bliss that is best on earth? Lovers' light whispers and tender mirth; Bright gleams the sun on the Green Sea's isle, But a brighter light has a woman's smile: Ever, like sunrise, fresh of hue, Taza ba taza, now ba now; Ever, like sunset, splendid and new, Taza ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and merrimakes of the village. The holidays were so many little eras of mirth and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine temperament —that merry-go-mad character—which renders all their social meetings scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss any of the fetes champetres, or rural dances, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity, and mirth; this being considered, especially by the females, as conducive to health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... seemed to her that Captain Duchesne's dark eyes lighted up when he talked to Ethel as they had not done when he talked to her; that Ethel's cheeks dimpled with her most irresistible smile, and that her voice was full of pretty cadences, delighted laughter, mirth and sweetness. Lesley's nature was so thoroughly unselfish, that she could bear to be set aside for a friend's sake; and she was so ingenuous and single-minded that she put no strained interpretation on the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... is easy to see by your Grace that we are in the dog-days. Your Highness must pardon my mirth; but who could help it? Merciful God! are Thy wonders, sent to fright the world and turn men from sin, to be called devil's sorceries! To what a pass is the world come! Has your Highness forgotten all history? Know you not that God gives many signs to His people, and speaks ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... skies, where gentler manners reign, We turn, where France displays her bright domain. Thou sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir With tuneless pipe, along the sliding Loire? No vernal bloom their torpid rocks display, But Winter lingering chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... person appeared in the doorway—one whom nobody present cared to see just then, though the superintendent stepped from his hiding-place, the mirth dying out of his genial face as he bowed respectfully to his superior, Mr. Archibald Wingate, the owner of Ardsley Mill and of ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Enticing motion with their voice unite; 35 While Indolence, luxurious laid along, Listless and loit'ring, hears the tender song. There, silent Myst'ry, with the veil she wears, And eyes conversing with the soul, appears, Attentive tender cares, attracting smiles, 40 Gay sport and mirth, and all that thought beguiles. Lascivious pleasures group'd with wanton ease; And soft desires ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... party of friends, and our children, to Weinheim; rambled through its vineyards, ascended to its ancient castle, and then went on to Birkenau Thal, a charming valley, celebrated, as its name denotes, for its lovely hanging birches, under which, with much happy mirth, we dined. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... about me. Methinks I should pine and die shut up within high walls, without the liberty to rove as I will. And then I am not /devote/. I love not to spend long hours upon my knees. I feel nearest to the Blessed Saints and the Holy Mother of God out here in these woods, where no ribald shouts of mirth or blasphemous oaths can reach me. But the Sisters live shut behind high walls, and they love best to tell their beads beside the shrine of some Saint within their dim chapels. They were good to us upon our journey. I love and reverence the holy ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... invariably broke into such paroxsyms of laughter that further utterance was impossible. Often as he attempted it, his narrative of the proceedings ended in such violent mirth that his hearers could not restrain themselves from joining in. They were obliged to acknowledge that he looked upon the affair as the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... with a large quince pye, and many crabs, together with sack and cordials, added our best welcome. The scrivano was so well pleased with his reception, that he insisted upon becoming the sworn brother of our captain, which was accordingly celebrated with a cup of sack; and, after much mirth, and having taken a view of our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... hers, pressed it to her heart, and smiled away all her sadness. "Dearest," said Montreal, "couldst thou know how much any shadow of grief on thy bright face darkens my heart, thou wouldst never grieve. But no wonder that in these rude walls—no female of equal rank near thee, and such mirth as Montreal can summon to his halls, grating to thy ear—no wonder that thou repentest thee ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... considerable numbers, he would himself, as general, propose and insist upon a retreat. Ronald utilized the short halt at Manchester to obtain new uniforms for himself and Malcolm, which he was glad to exchange for the farmer's garb, which had been the occasion of a good deal of joking and mirth among his fellow officers on ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... wild, His caustic merciless mirth Was leveled at pompous shams. Doubt not behind that mask There dwelt the soul of a man, Resolute, sorrowing, sage, As sure a champion of good As ever rode forth ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... help liking him? He betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from him broke no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; his lips let fall no caustic that burned to the bone; his eye shot no morose shafts that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your heart: beside him was rest ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... when long in the ground it had lain, And time into clay had resolved it again, A potter found out in its covert so snug, And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jug Now sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale; So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... aspect—fields still green, but stripped of every gem;—whilst still some russet warbler may be heard chirping in sorrow and distress, and heavy looking clouds anxious to screen the cheering ray, which now and then bursts forth with sickly smile, that seems like ill-timed mirth amongst ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... wings, And the night-raven sings; ............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, ............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou Goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing Mirth; Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore: Or whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... in motion; And he that in Wedlock twice hazards his Carcase Twice ventures the Drowning, and, Faith, that's a hard case. Even at our Weapons the Females defeat us, And Death, only Death, can sign our Quietus. Not to tell you sad stories of Liberty lost, Our Mirth is all pall'd, and our Measures all crost; That Pagan Confinement, that damnable Station, Sutes no other States or Degrees in the Nation. The Levite it keeps from Parochial Duty, For who can at ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... heard it in days of the spring, When gladness and joy were rife. 'Twas a voice of hope, that came whispering Its story of strength and life. It told me that seasons of vigor and mirth Follow the night of pain; And the heaven-born soul, like the flowers of earth, Withers, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the climax. Paganel could not stand any more. He was obliged to go away and take his laugh out, for he was actually exploding with mirth, and he went fully a quarter of a mile from the encampment before his equilibrium ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... all events, brother," replied Eric, laughing in his old fashion at the possibility of such a thing. The lad was quite overwrought with emotion at parting with the old skipper as well as his late companions in the ship; and, tears and mirth being closely allied, he would have felt inclined to laugh at anything ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... boy of four years of age and a little girl of six, whose tiny form was draped in such gossamer-like fabrics that she seemed more fairy-like than human, were pulling at her dress, eager to enter the mirth-resounding parlors, but afraid to leave her sheltering wing. Mrs. Jocelyn watched the scene from the doorway, where her husband had stood, without his sigh. Her motherly heart sympathized with Belle's abounding life and fun, and her maternal ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... majesty," cried the marquis, whose black eyes were again sparkling with mirth, "I now feel that my poor heart spoke the truth when it declared that you were ever by its side. We have really not been separated, and your majesty begins with me to-day where you left off but yesterday. You laugh now as then at me, and my poor bed, which has heard for more than a year past only ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... mouths, they entertain each other in the most unrestrained manner in spite of the exalted position held by most of these men. Some who do not smoke hold cold pipes between their teeth, that they may not mar the harmony of the picture. One member of the circle is singled out nightly as an object for mirth, and the choice is made by lot. Each and every one can in turn become the butt of merry satire. To have been present at a meeting of this oddest of all court gatherings would furnish me with the most notable memory I could ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... produce an effect," said Miriam: "it shan't be said that I too haven't had my little success in the maison de Moliere." And Sherringham repeated that it was all right—the place was familiar with mirth and passion, there was often wonderful talk there, and it was only the setting that was still and solemn. It happened that this evening—there was no knowing in advance—the scene was not characteristically ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... blue jay gave proof of the need of parental training. While he intuitively called like a jay, he never was able to sing the sweet, gurgling roulade of the wild jays. On the contrary, he treated us to all kinds of odd, imitative, mirth-provoking performances that no self-respecting jay in the open would think of enacting. After several months of cage life he was given his liberty. Now, indeed, he showed his lack of jay bringing ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... shows and sports were arranged by D.H.Q. Substantial prizes and valuable trophies were awarded the successful competitors. The day's proceedings would be enlivened by band music. Impersonations of the world's mirth maker, Charlie Chaplin, and Australian 'sun-downers,' were decidedly clever and afforded much amusement. Horse shows always attract large attendances, and any vehicle going in the direction of the show grounds was ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... "Your mirth is most ill-timed, Miss Ashby. This is by no means a facetious occasion, please understand. I do not lightly tolerate the infringement of my rules, as you will learn to your cost. If, as you state, you are ignorant of the contents of this letter ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... A sound of mirth swept to them. With horror frozen on their faces, the three rascals were aware of Thompson, leaning in the doorway—unmistakably sober, given up to reprehensible levity, holding out a bright tin ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... in heliotropes was a subject of much mirth between Bart and myself, and the place was anything but a bed of sweet odours! The poor things lost the few leaves they had possessed and really looked as if they had been haunted by the ghosts of all the departed chickens that had gone from the fowl-house to the block. Then we had ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... a very versatile pen and in most of the twenty-one pieces of Jetsam (MILLS AND BOON) which he has recovered from the waves of monthly magazines and elsewhere there is a certain amount of material for mirth. I do not however find him a startlingly original humorist, whether on the river Thames, where he seems to follow in the wake of Mr. JEROME K. JEROME, or in a Chelsea "pub," where his manners are reminiscent of the characters of Messrs. W. W. JACOBS and MORTON HOWARD. Again, in the story ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... mirth and jollity, the numerous torches flashing their red light against the small windows of the narrow streets, from whence nightcapped householders, and sometimes their wives to boot, peeped out by stealth ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... as we turned into Whitehall! I began to feel I had been wrong about Raffles after all, and that enhanced my mirth. Surely this was the old gay rascal, and it was by some uncanny feat of his stupendous will that he had appeared so haggard on the platform. In the London lamplight that he loved so well, under a starry sky of an almost theatrical blue, he looked ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... turning I saw a man of about thirty years, dressed in the plainest-cut Quaker clothes, but with a contradiction to every tenet of Fox written on his face, where a brow of gravity for ever read the riot act to eyes that twinkled with ill-repressed mirth. When I came to know him well, and saw the preternatural calm of his too quiet lips, I used to imagine that unseen little demons of ready laughter were for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... business was most distasteful to him. Imagine our delight when he proved to have an elaborate discourse with full notes of which no one had seen the preparation. "I have been fortunate in securing another night," he mentioned amidst mirth, and proceeded to give us the most interesting and able account of the minds and bodies of horses in general and ours in particular. He ended with a story of a dinner-party at which he was a guest, probably against his will. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... m., joyous carrying-on in social entertainment, mirth, social gaiety: acc. sg. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... his cheek, and chuckled; and, chuckling, pulled his hat well down over his brows, thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, and shambled back to the St. Luke Building—his heavy body vibrating amazingly with his secret mirth. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... laughter from my auditor; which, indeed, I now began to think very natural. In a word, to cut the story short, my friend having repeated the conference verbatim to Mr. Bub, he was good-natured enough to join in the mirth, saying, with one of his best sardonics, he "had always had a misgiving that his unlucky ugly face would one day or other be the death of somebody." Well, we passed the day together, and having cracked a social bottle after dinner, parted, I believe, as heartily ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... simple things, And Mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And Love to ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... he had a petition to present which might be a subject of mirth to some honorable gentlemen, but which was one deserving of consideration. It came from a lady of rank and fortune, Mary Smith of Stanmore, in the county of York. The petition stated that she paid taxes, and therefore did not see why she should not have a share in the election of a representative; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... millet-broth, millet-cakes, and a pot of sake. The men now sat down on mats before the dead bear, offered libations to it, and drank deep. Meanwhile the women and girls had laid aside all marks of sorrow, and danced merrily, none more merrily than the old women. When the mirth was at its height two young Aino, who had let the bear out of his cage, mounted the roof of the hut and threw cakes of millet among the company, who all scrambled for them without distinction of age or sex. The bear was next skinned and disembowelled, and the trunk severed from the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the deck the choleric captain still stamped and swore, and his crew, with well-concealed mirth, went about their various duties as if they were accustomed to have shanghaied men act this way. They sympathized with the unfortunate pair, realizing how they themselves would feel if ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... men of sterling worth, all bent upon reforming the heaven and the earth; they come from far Savannah, they come from Texarkana, and points in Indiana, with loud yet seemly mirth. They're come from far Alaska, where show is heaped on snow; they've journeyed from Nebraska where commoners do grow; the famed, the wise, the witty, the timid, and the gritty have come from Kansas City and also Broken Bow. Their battle shout is thrilling as they go marching ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... come here as an apostle of a better, honest life, in the nature of a, now, saviour of perishing souls. You know, as in the dawn of Christianity certain holy fathers instead of standing on a column for thirty years or living in a cave in the woods, went to the market places, into houses of mirth, to the harlots and scaramuchios. But you aren't inclined ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... laugh, but her mirth was obviously forced. Their conversation ceased perforce with the return of Mills into ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all over with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in your spleen, will dissipate you in jests, pulverise you into salt, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... like to see a picture, illustrating a part of L'allegro. Where the godesses of Mirth and Liberty trip along hand in hand. Two beautiful girls dressed in flowing garments, dancing along a flower-strewn path, through a pretty garden. Their hair flowing down in long curls. Their countenances ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... there was something in the tone that was not good to hear. A moment earlier it would have wounded Israel Kafka to the quick and brought the hot, angry blood to his face. Now he laughed with her, vacantly, as though not knowing the cause of his mirth. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... song among the Irish Celts grew out of their nature, and in time brought out all the refinements of art. Long before Cambrensis's time the whole island resounded with music and mirth, and the king-archbishop, Cormac McCullinan, could not better express his gratitude to his Thomond ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... I was making them dangerous. They spoke of my knowledge of Indian tongues, and added apocryphal tales of my feats of wit and daring. My image loomed large, and it was no wonder that they did not connect this mythical Colossus with the swaggering royster who played buffoon for their mirth. I wondered that Pemaou had not told them, but I reflected that there is a mutual distrust among Indians that takes the place of reticence, and that that had saved me. I had escaped for the moment, but the ice was thin. I should be given short shrift once ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... through the story of a gentleman. You are saved the damage by this, poor fools! besides which, often your lady becomes enamoured, is seized with fecund agitations to your advantage, raised in her by the present book. Therefore do these volumes assist to populate the land and maintain it in mirth, honour and health. I say mirth, because much is to be derived from these tales. I say honour, because you save your nest from the claws of that youthful demon named cuckoldom in the language of the Celts. I say health, because this book incites that which was prescribed by the Church of Salerno, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... struck him full in the back, for he had already begun his retreat; and after sending two or three more with all the vigour produced by anger, Peter Pegg lay back on the roof, listening to the distant pattering of feet, and laughing with suppressed mirth till the tears ran ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... beautiful tribute to his memory, "never fairly recovered the death of Coleridge. He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, 'cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed' upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... native-born of Spain. Some of them were disposed to laugh at the strangeness, not to say the absurdity, of some of the costumes which confronted them; but all of them were too well bred to indulge their mirth, or to stare offensively at the subjects of their suppressed merriment. One young man excited their attention especially; and Louis at the side of Miss Blanche, and the rest of the quartet of young Americans, ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... to have put his seal to the writing, testifying that the foreboding had been realized, and that the record was authentic?—Lastingly is it to be regretted in respect to this memorable being, that inconsiderate intrusion has not left us at liberty to enjoy his mirth, or his love; his wisdom or his wit; without an admixture of useless, irksome, and painful details, that take from his poems so much of that right—which, with all his carelessness, and frequent breaches ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... By the gods, who thought about him Till they couldn't do without him. Now he's here again; I've seen Soldier David dressed in green, Standing in a wood that swings To the madrigal he sings. He's come back, all mirth and glory, Like the prince in a fairy story. Winter called him far away; Blossoms bring him ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... company of eighteen men and women amused themselves by dancing and singing in the churchyard of St. Magnus, in the diocese of Magdeburg, to the annoyance of a priest who was saying mass in the church. He ordered them to desist; but they danced on in reckless mirth. The holy father then invoked God and St. Magnus to keep them dancing for a whole year; and not in vain. For twelve months they danced in spite of themselves. Neither dew nor rain fell upon them; and their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... him as a robber and a tyrant. The most certain intelligence is, that an old captain beat out his brains with a club. Others again say that the Araucanians passed the night after their victory in dances and mirth; and that at the end of every dance, they cut off a piece of flesh from Valdivia and another from the priest, both yet alive, which they broiled and eat before their faces. During which horrid repast, Valdivia confessed to the priest and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... College Gate, its pillars so artfully, invitingly rounded by William of Wykeham, drew us in again. We were stirred by William Byrd's "Praise our Lord, all ye Gentiles," and taken to Oxford by Gibbons's "What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth? The music of division." Purcell recalled our gracious English landscape, and English life, "When Myra sings we seek the enchanting sound"; and Thomas Morley with "Now is the month of maying." Then there was rollicking Tom Bateson, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... meal. Like true soldiers, they took it all in a day's work and there seemed to be no lack of spirits among them even if they were assigned the grim task of hanging a man upon the morrow. And Haym Salomon, being condemned to death by a military court, smiled his grave, gentle smile to hear their mirth. He had played the game of chance and he had lost, so why should ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... could long be serious in the presence of Vergil Gunch. "Ask Dant' how Jack Shakespeare and old Verg'—the guy they named after me—are gettin' along, and don't they wish they could get into the movie game!" he blared, and instantly all was mirth. Mrs. Jones shrieked, and Eddie Swanson desired to know whether Dante didn't catch cold with nothing on ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... grew the mirth of the pirates, and wilder their looks and gestures, as the powerful liquor they were swallowing took effect on their brains. I saw Mary cling closer to her father in fear and trembling, all the time watching me with furtive glances, lest ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the parrot which had saved his life echoing his mirth raucously, as his eyes hit upon the following lines of fine print halfway down the third column of page 410 of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... drawings the elegance of our architecture. Our manners likewise are little calculated to excite their approval and imitation. Not to insist on the licentiousness that has at times been imputed to our communities; the pleasures of the table; emulation in wine; boisterous mirth; juvenile frolics, and puerile amusements, which do not pass without serious, perhaps contemptuous, animadversion—setting these aside it appears to me that even our best models are but ill adapted for the imitation of a rude, incurious, and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... moment, Lord Colambre might have been amused with all this rhodomontade, and with the airs and voluble conceit of the orator; but, after what he had heard at Mr. Mordicai's, this whole scene struck him more with melancholy than with mirth. He was alarmed by the prospect of new and unbounded expense; provoked, almost past enduring, by the jargon and impertinence of this upholsterer; mortified and vexed to the heart to see his mother the dupe, the sport of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... sooth, though he was a young man and loved mirth and the ways of his own will, he was a stalwarth workman, and few could mow a match with him in the hay-month and win it; or fell trees as certainly and swiftly, or drive as straight and clean a furrow through the stiff land ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... had seen a piece of my friend's private life at Epsom. Nothing could have been farther removed from misery. A light-hearted gaiety reigned in his face and ruled his every gesture. His companions seemed to bow to him, as to their leading humorist and mirth-maker. I was stimulated by the collapse of my elaborate illusion to make inquiries about him. I found that he had been born almost on the stage, and had taken part in stage-life from his earliest years. He never had any ambition: so long as he could be on the stage, and take part ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... many years, but if she is yet living in any part of England, it would gladden my heart to have one more acknowledgment from her. In relating this case at Temperance meetings, I have sometimes created a little mirth, by remarking, 'I went in search of a man, and lo! and behold, I found a woman.' ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... outright, easily and with real mirth. Yet in his heart were sown already the seeds of a secret dread. There was a ring of passionate truth in Monty's words. He believed what he was saying. Perhaps he was right. The man's inborn hatred ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sought the feast In vain he quaff'd the bowl, And strove with noisy mirth to drown The anguish of ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... mats became deserted, and the pastors had taken their carts for their homes, a little elated but still quoting holy writ, the nymphs and a dozen other girls of seething mirth took possession of the temple with a score of young men, and sang their love-songs and set the words to gesture and somatic harmony. Brooke and I lay and mused as we listened and gazed. When a youth crowned with ferns began to play a series of flageolets ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... banquet I had given on board the Molly Stark—my yacht, named after the lady known to history, whom dad claims for an ancestress—and I laughed out loud. The boys wanted to know the cause of my mirth, and so, with a sardine laid out decently between two crackers in one hand, and a blue "granite" cup of plebeian beer in the other, I told them all about that banquet, and some of the things we had to eat and drink—whereat they laughed, too. The contrast was certainly amusing. But, somehow, I ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... the old-time waterfront That rang with joy and mirth, And known throughout a dozen states As "the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... "Simple!" Mrs. Oldham's mirth was high and satiric. "Isn't that like a man? Simple is the last word to be applied to Marcia's frocks, Mr. Hayden. It's a good thing, as I often tell her, that her father left us ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... a clemency which made even those who questioned his policy love him the more for what they called his weakness,—seeing how the man in whom God had most embodied the discipline of Freedom not only could not be a slave, but could not be a tyrant! In the heartiness of his mirth and his enjoyment of simple joys; in the directness and shrewdness of perception which constituted his wit; in the untired, undiscouraged faith in human nature which he always kept; and perhaps above all in the plainness and quiet, unostentatious earnestness and independence ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... village, and commenced their search for a cottage, that would afford a night's lodging. In several, which they entered, ignorance, poverty, and mirth seemed equally to prevail; and the owners eyed St. Aubert with a mixture of curiosity and timidity. Nothing like a bed could be found, and he had ceased to enquire for one, when Emily joined him, who observed the languor of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... people of Kyle regarded this conduct with suspicion: they were not to be expected to know that when Burns ranted and housed with smugglers, conversed with tinkers huddled in a kiln, or listened to the riotous mirth of a batch of "randie gangrel bodies" as they "toomed their powks and pawned their duds," for liquor in Poosie Nansie's, he was taking sketches for the future entertainment and instruction of the world; they could not foresee that from all this moral strength and poetic ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham |
